


From the Ashes

by Lazy8



Series: Holding Hearts [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Childhood Trauma, Families of Choice, Family Drama, Gen, Imprisonment, Major Character Injury, Male-Female Friendship, Past Abuse, Platonic Life Partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 71,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23471857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazy8/pseuds/Lazy8
Summary: Zuko and Katara knew from the beginning that they'd only be able to hide the Avatar's return for so long, and the secret has finally come out. Now, with the Fire Nation on their heels and an ever-growing list of problems to overcome, they nevertheless must do whatever they can to complete the new Avatar's training... that is, assuming she's even still willing to be trained...
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara (Avatar) & Original Character(s), Zuko (Avatar) & Original Character(s)
Series: Holding Hearts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/169646
Comments: 95
Kudos: 104





	1. Shame

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, new book, new album. The inspiration for this book is _Up_ by Peter Gabriel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "[More than This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVXB4Y_LvpI)" by Peter Gabriel

The cold pre-dawn air of the desert bit into her skin as she walked away from the warmth and safety of her home. The familiar softness of the shifting sand between her bare toes was her only source of comfort.

Finally, she stopped behind the rise of a dune. She had no idea how long she had walked, but the house was now little more than a distant shadow on the horizon and the stars were beginning to disappear as the sky was streaked with true color. Digging her toes into the sand, she felt for the presence of other people, or of any animals large enough to be a danger, and met with only the wind-shifting sand and the reassuring scurrying of small creatures just beginning to stir from their burrows.

"Are you here?" she asked out loud, turning to scan the barren landscape that stretched out endlessly in all directions.

The space around her was empty, but as soon as she spoke the air began to shimmer, as if with a desert mirage. Between one blink and the next the Boy was there, all washed-out and see-through, still looking serious and without his cheerful smile or his reassuring words.

"Yes," he said, standing before her, "it's time to start giving you answers." Now that she was ready to listen to him, though, he did not seem eager to talk, and Lien was struck by the unhappiness in his eyes as he turned his colorless gaze upon her. "You must have questions."

"Who _are_ you?" she whispered.

It had never before occurred to her to ask. He had always been there, just as her limbs had always been there: she would no more have asked why she had two legs, or why her arm was attached to her body. Then, too, the memory of him had faded as she had aged and his visits had tapered off, and had she thought about him at all she could easily have convinced herself that the kind Boy who'd always provided comfort in her darkest hours had been the invention of her own lonely, desperate mind. This time, however, there was no pretending: Lien was old enough now to know that this was no mere imaginary friend who stood before her now, and she had learned enough of the world to know that most people did not have see-through spirit friends that no one else could see or hear.

"Lien, I'm you."

"I _can't_ be just imagining you." Lien's hands were beginning to shake. "I saw you in the Spirit World, you—"

"You're right," he agreed, interrupting. "That's not what I meant." He held up his hands in supplication. "My name is Aang, and you're not imagining me. I'm your previous life."

Lien could only stare, uncomprehending. She also knew that most people could not remember their past lives, much less be guided or comforted by them.

"Why are you here?" she asked at last, because it was the only thing she could think _to_ ask, because even though she now knew that the answers were out there waiting for her she still did not know the right question.

"I'm here because you're… _different…_ from most people. You must have noticed before…" He paused, let out a sigh, and then plunged on. "Have you ever wondered why you can bend both water and earth?"

"I… I just can. There's nothing special about it…" The trembling in Lien's hands had now spread to her voice.

"Is that so?" Aang asked gently. "Tell me: how many elements can Katara bend?"

Katara, who'd been the first one to tell her to talk to the sand, but had never even attempted to bend sand herself… "One."

"What about Zuko?"

Zuko, begging her to know whether her bending was back yet, because healing abilities were restricted to waterbenders, and he had only fire… "One."

"And the other benders you've known? Nara? Xi Wang?"

"One…" Her voice was now coming out in a whisper.

"You've mastered two elements, even though there isn't a single other person alive who can bend more than one. Don't you want to know why?"

This time, Lien could not respond at all. The Boy's words had touched something in the back of her mind, something she had never questioned, or perhaps it was something she had carefully _not_ thought about for all these years, for actually hearing someone say it straight out also tickled the ghost of a memory, something that had happened so long ago that it was now nothing more than a fuzzy blur…

" _It means you can bend more than one element._ "

"Lien," the Boy— _Aang—_ repeated now as he stood before her, his eyes locked with hers. "You're the Avatar."

"What does that _mean?_ " The word was not one she knew, had not heard before except maybe once or twice in passing—yet hearing it now was enough to make her palms sweat and her heart pound madly against her ribcage; her voice, when she spoke, was now coming out high-pitched and panicked.

In response, Aang held out his hand. "Let me show you."

There was only one place that Lien had ever been able to touch him. Biting her lip, she nodded, and placed her hand in his.

Immediately his faded, washed-out skin acquired healthy color, his clothes flushing with shades of yellow and orange that made her think of a desert sunrise. Looking around her, Lien saw that they no longer stood among the dunes, but were now sitting up among the clouds, atop the back of the same large flying animal that he had once used to guide her to Katara—Appa, she thought that his name was.

"You've probably figured out already that the Avatar is the master of all four elements." At Aang's gesture, more ghostly images appeared among the clouds: a man with long white hair and beard, a woman with a painted face, and Aang himself, all with glowing eyes, all bending air, water, earth, and fire to their will. "I know that you've already mastered water, and that you've been learning all that you can of earth. You'll be able to bend fire and air, too, by the time your training is complete… but that's only the first part of what you need to know."

" _Why?_ " It was, she knew, the question that Aang was waiting for her to ask, even though he hadn't yet answered it. "Why me and no one else?"

Aang sighed. "I asked the same question when I first found out. And to be honest… nobody knows. That's just the way it's been, since the beginning of history. When the old Avatar dies, the next one is born, to the next element in the cycle. It's not something anybody can control. The only thing we can do is accept it."

He fell silent for a moment, and Lien did not speak either, and he let her take the few minutes she needed to think about that, to process it. "Why didn't Katara and Zuko tell me?" she whispered at last, looking away from the powerful bending and glowing eyes of the past Avatars and down at her hands where they lay in her lap.

"Zuko did try, once," he said softly, and she looked back up at him, staring into his face and finding only compassion. "You reacted so badly that they decided you weren't ready, and that it would be better to wait until you were older."

Reacted badly? Aang wasn't telling her specifics, but it was there in his voice. What had she done?

Lien shook her head. "I don't remember."

_Didn't_ she remember?

Aang tugged the reins.

"Bending multiple elements isn't the only thing you can do," he elaborated as she inched forward to join him atop Appa's head. " _All_ of your past lives are still with you, and in times of direst need, you can call upon the full force of the Avatar spirit, which will make you more powerful than any other bender."

Peering down over the side of Appa's head, Lien saw that though they were in the Spirit World, they had not left the desert: they were in fact venturing deeper into the Si Wong, and when she cast her eyes forward she could make out a collection of tents on the ground below them—and they were heading right for it.

Appa dove. Rather than leveling off for a landing, though, he seemed to be picking up speed, and Lien threw her hands in front of her face with a gasp of fear. The expected crash, however, did not come, and when she lowered her eyes to shakily blink at her surroundings she saw that they had passed _through_ the wall of one of the tents, and had been deposited inside on the ground. Appa had disappeared, leaving her alone with Aang.

The tent was not empty. There were sandbenders standing in the corners and by the door, and on the floor, she could see Katara, Nori, and Xi Wang, all with bound hands. Aang pointed, his gesture indicating the center of the tent. "Look."

Even as she turned her head, a scream rent the air, and shakes went uncontrollably up her spine and limbs as she recognized Zuko's voice. As her gaze followed Aang's pointing finger, she saw a young girl standing on the ground, eyes glowing an inhuman shade of blue-white, and streams of water swirling all around her in a deadly maelstrom. Katara and Xi Wang were shouting, Nori was crying, and a few seconds later Katara, now freed, entered her field of view, voicing frantic reassurances as she struggled to bend the water away long enough for her to get close.

"Is that… me?"

Aang nodded. "The Avatar State is your greatest weapon—and also your greatest weakness. Once you learn to control it, you'll be almost unstoppable, but until then, it can be triggered by intense emotion, with no awareness or restraint—which makes you a danger to both yourself and others."

As Aang finished speaking, her younger self's eyes slipped closed, and the water splashed down to soak the packed-sand floor of the tent. Katara sobbed as she held Lien's unconscious body in her arms.

Between one blink and the next, the scene changed. Unconscious Zuko, battered and covered with blood. Unconscious Lien, lying on the floor next to him. Katara kneeling between them, water coating her hands as she pressed one to Lien's chest and the other to Zuko's.

As Katara worked, she frowned, and then turned to focus entirely on Lien with one last worried glance over at Zuko. As she held the water to Lien's chest her shoulders sagged, and she wiped the back of her wrist across her forehead with an expression of utter exhaustion.

"Calling on the Avatar State like that can take a lot out of you," Aang explained as she watched, frozen, "before you know how to control it. Doing it when you're so young, and starving, and still recovering from injuries can be life-threatening. It gets worse, too." He turned away from the ugly scene, and Lien gladly followed him, not wanting to keep looking at herself or the others when they were in such a horrible state.

They were standing in the open desert now, nothing but empty dunes as far as the eye could see. "I told you that whenever the old Avatar dies, a new one is born in his or her place." Lien nodded. "If you die in the Avatar State, though, that line will be broken, and there will never be another Avatar again."

He stopped, then, and looked at her. Lien swallowed: they had finally come to it. The most important thing that no one had told her.

"Why does that matter?" she asked quietly. There: the crux of it. "What's so important about the Avatar?"

The second she spoke, their surroundings went dark. No more desert, no more previous Avatars, and no more visions of the past: now, there was only her and Aang, standing alone in a sea of black.

"It matters because, as the master of all four elements, it is the Avatar's job to maintain balance in the world. Just as we have four elements, the four nations were meant to be just that: four, with no one nation or people more powerful or important than the others.

"Over a hundred years ago, the Air Nomads, the Water, Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, and the Fire Nation all lived together in harmony—but everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Fire Lord Sozin threw the world out of balance when he wiped out the Air Nomads, began to assimilate the Earth Kingdom, and stole all the benders from the Water Tribes, and the world has continued to slide more and more out of balance since."

"So I… I'm supposed to…" Lien felt sick as the implications sank in, as the truth finally began to come clear to her.

"Avatar Roku was already growing old and feeble by the time that Sozin murdered him," Aang continued solemnly. She got a brief glimpse of a mountain of ash rolling down the side of a volcano, and the tiny human figure that was buried beneath it. "I was only a child when he made his first move against the Air Nomads, and only survived due to luck." A roiling black sky appeared and beneath it a rain-lashed sea; Aang and Appa flew amid the lightning and sheets of water, only to lose control and plunge under the waves. After a few seconds of confused fear, Aang's eyes opened with a glow, he touched his fists together, and the both of them were surrounded by a solid ball of ice.

"I slept inside of that iceberg for a hundred years." Aang's voice now had gone very quiet. "A hundred years without the Avatar, while the Fire Nation kidnapped waterbenders and nibbled away at the Earth Kingdom with one colony after another. Katara was the one who set me free."

Brought to a surface full of glaciers and snow, the ball of ice cracked open, and Aang toppled out. Looking down at him was a girl it took Lien a few seconds to recognize as a much younger Katara, and a boy she didn't recognize at all.

"By that time, though, the world had been a hundred years without an Avatar. The nations were already far out of balance, and it was about to get much, much worse.

"How exactly it happened isn't important. But Fire Lord Ozai had an opportunity, and he made one final push to subjugate the other nations once and for all. We—myself, Katara, Zuko, and some others—made our own push to stop him. I was the one who met Ozai in single combat."

Now, they stood in a landscape of barren rock pillars under a glowing red sky. Fire, more fire than Lien had ever seen in her life, baked the air around them. Looking to the top of one of the rock pillars, she saw another version of Aang, his eyes and tattoos glowing and his clothing ripped to shreds, battling midair with a man: tall, powerful, and much bigger and older than Aang was.

Lien frowned. His face… there was something about his face that seemed vaguely familiar, that tickled something in the back of her mind, but before she could give it any real thought, Aang spoke again.

"I was supposed to be the one who stopped the Fire Nation's aggression and restored balance to the world. In that, I failed."

At first, it looked as if Aang had the upper hand. His opponent was pinned. He drew back to strike with the force of all four elements. Then, though, right on the brink of delivering the finishing blow, he hesitated. He turned away, letting the elements he'd been wielding with such deadly force crash back downward as inert water and stone. He turned his back. The other man, however, was not as helpless as he had first appeared. Even as they watched, he stood, fire blooming in his hand, and delivered a blow straight at Aang's neck. Everything went black again right as it connected.

"I was unable to stop Ozai and restore balance to the world. Unfortunately, that responsibility now falls on you." Even as he faded away, she could see tears glistening in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Lien."

Then, between one blink and the next, she was no longer looking into the Boy's gray eyes but Zuko's gold ones. She had come back to her body and he was kneeling in front of her, gripping her by the shoulders and frantically calling her name.

"Lien! Lien, are you okay? Lien, can you _hear_ me?"

Her mouth opened, but she could not speak. She could only stare back at him in horror and despair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooooooo... how's _your_ pandemic been going?
> 
> I was going to wait until I'd completed the second draft to actually start posting, but given the circumstances, I figured that if I can do anything to make someone's day a little bit brighter, even if that's just posting a fanfic, I probably should. As per usual, updates will be every weekend unless there's prior notice, or unless I catch Covid and die.


	2. Denial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "[Growing Up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-aHqlm6WmE)" by Peter Gabriel

"I'm going to _kill_ Aang."

"I think you're going to run into a technical problem there." Though Katara's voice was level, her hands gave her away as they clenched into fists in her lap.

" _Did you do this to Aang?_ "

" _Who told you about Aang?_ "

" _Aang did. He said it was time._ "

" _Lien… I'm sorry, we were planning to tell you…_ "

" _Leave me_ alone!" It was the first time she had ever raised her voice to either of them.

"What are we going to _do?_ " Katara's composure dissolved at last as she buried her face in her hands.

* * *

"Did _you_ know?"

"Hey, don't look at me. I think that they should have told you _ages_ ago, but nobody would let me say anything."

Though Nara seemed completely unruffled by the accusations, Lien glared anyway. "You never cared about doing what anyone told you to _before_ ," she accused.

"The first time anyone tried to tell you, you _freaked out_ ," Nara countered. "For all we knew, you might have gone into the—well, you might have done something violent, and none of us would have been able to stop you. I'd rather not survive having my neck cut up just to get splattered against a wall, thanks."

Lien crossed her arms, and did not answer. Why had Nara felt the need to come with her, anyway? It certainly wasn't to coach her; Lien could now drive the sand sailor well enough by herself to get into town and back without any help. Nara, however, had had other ideas. " _You walk into town in a mood like that and you're liable to end up getting knifed in the back. If I don't go with you, one of the others is going to insist anyway. So, it's your choice: me, or Zuko or Katara._ "

So she'd said nothing, and let Nara climb onto the sand sailor with her, and they'd rode all the way out to the oasis in dead silence. Once they got there, however, Lien realized that she had no idea what she'd been planning to _do_ : her primary thought had been to get _away_ , and she'd only headed for the oasis because other than the desert, there was nowhere else to go… but even the oasis wasn't far away _enough_. No matter which direction she turned she found herself surrounded by other people, people who tried to get her attention or to sell her things, people gossiping among themselves about the spirits and the light show and the _Avatar…_

Feeling claustrophobic, she ducked into a deserted alleyway. Nara followed. When it let out into the open desert, Lien doubled over slightly, wrapping her arms around her stomach. Even though she knew there was nothing wrong with her physically, it suddenly seemed like everything hurt.

"So… what _are_ you going to do?"

It was like Nara had been reading her mind. Slowly, Lien found herself sinking down onto the baking hot ground, her fists still pressed into her stomach. "I don't _know_ ," she admitted.

She had no idea how long she sat there. It might have been anywhere from a few minutes to more than an hour. Eventually, though, Nara hooked a hand under her arm, and pulled her to her feet. "Well, there's nothing you can do right _now_ , so we might as well go get something to drink."

They sat in the shade of an awning while Lien sipped the fruity concoction that Nara had shoved into her hands. She felt the ice sliding down into her stomach, but didn't taste it at all. All this time… all this time, Katara and Zuko had known, and they had not told her…

"It isn't fair," she muttered, letting her frozen cup sink back into her lap.

" _Life's_ not fair." Nara shrugged, and tugged away a few layers of clothing to reveal the old scar. "You think that _this_ ," and Lien did not have to ask what _this_ meant, "was fair? But I didn't have a choice about that, and you don't have a choice about this, so it looks like we're going to have to learn to live with it."

Lien didn't answer. Her fingers tightened around the ice cup. Then, before she could even stop to fathom what she was doing, she stood and threw the remains of her drink out into the street with all the force she could muster, before turning and storming out toward the edge of the oasis.

Here, with no buildings in the way, the endless desert spread out before her, baking in the harsh light of the unrelenting sun. Up until this point, she had always thought it beautiful. Looking at it now, however, she could only see a harsh, uncaring future stretching out before her with no relief in sight.

The sand cared nothing for her or her problems…

With a yell of sudden rage, she dug her feet into the Earth and bore down with her hand.

Sand and tender soil spewed up from the ground in a torrent of rock and dirt. By the time the last of the debris had finished raining down onto her back and into her hair, she was on her hands and knees on the ground, her whole body shaking as tears streamed down her face.

No one could tell her why.

Still shaking, she dug her fingers into the sand. The ground in front of her was a mess, a raw hole of blasted earth with dirt and sand spewed in every direction. At the sight of the destruction she'd wrought, she was hit by a fresh wave of tears, rocking back and forth on the ground as her body shook with sobs.

For a long time, she could only kneel there weeping, her breath coming in gasps and the rough ground digging into her knees. Eventually, however, the tears had to stop, and there was nothing to do but crawl forward and call to all of the earth that she had displaced, a few final hiccups wrenching out of her as she felt the tender soil and witnessed close-up the damage that she had done.

A slight cough sounded behind her. Looking back, she saw that Nara was standing guard, but pointedly not looking in her direction—probably had been since she'd first stormed away.

There was, however, no more anger left in her after that brief burst of violence. Instead, she only felt emptied out, trapped, and fragile as she stood and brushed her hands off on her clothing.

"What am I going to _do?_ " she asked at last, staring out over the empty landscape and not looking at Nara as Nara didn't look at her.

"Don't look at me." Nara's voice, though still not soft or gentle, carried none of its usual bite. "This isn't exactly my area either."

* * *

After they got home that night, Lien went straight to her bedroom without speaking to anyone.

Nara did help, she admitted grudgingly, standing between her and the others and keeping a conversation going long enough for her to slip past and hide behind the privacy of her own door. Even if Nara was doing the distracting by giving everyone else a report on where they'd been and what Lien had done.

…Nara had also been the one to drag her into a tavern and plop a bowl down in front of her and not let her move until she ate, and the one to trail her through the streets of the oasis until even the last stall of the night market had been packed up, and the one to remind her that if they didn't go home on their own, and go soon, it was only a matter of time before three frantic benders came blazing into the oasis looking for them, and did she really want to deal with _that_ on top of everything else?

So no, she couldn't force herself to keep being angry at Nara right now, even though Nara had been just as complicit as everyone else in hiding the truth from her. She wasn't even sure whether she truly was angry at Zuko and Katara—the only thing she knew for sure was that she did not want to see them or hear their excuses.

Three times that night people knocked on her door and asked to come in: Katara, and Zuko, and even Nori. Lien pulled her pillow over her head and pretended to be asleep every time.

* * *

The next day she was out before the first morning light, only to find Nara already lounging atop the sand sailor.

"So are we heading out, or what?" Nara asked, covering a yawn while Lien stared.

Lien did not climb aboard, instead crossing her arms where she stood on the sand. "Did _they_ ask you to do this?"

Nara shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Lien opened her mouth to argue, but then bit her lip as she looked back toward the house. Though she _wanted_ to demand that Nara leave her alone, she also knew that that would result in an argument, which would result in a delay, and if they started shouting the others would probably hear it, and she had to get moving as quickly as possible if she wanted to get out of here before Zuko and Xi Wang woke up. So, she clenched her fists but didn't say a word as she climbed aboard, and got the sand sailor moving in stony silence.

The day passed much the same way as the previous one had: blind, aimless wandering through the streets of the oasis, eating or drinking whatever Nara shoved into her hands because it was much easier to concede than to actually _talk_ to each other, seeing and feeling the people moving around her and living a life that she was no longer part of. Though she had once felt at home here, Lien now knew that she was _apart_ , different. Marked.

"You're not going to be able to avoid them forever, you know," Nara remarked as they sat atop the sand sailor on the afternoon of the third day, watching the crowds move past as the sun crept ever closer to the horizon.

Lien did not answer. Instead, she tucked her knees in closer to her chest, staring out into the crowd without really seeing anything that was in front of her. _Balance…_ she was expected to restore balance to the _whole world…_

"So what are you going to do? And don't tell me you're going to do _this_ every day for the rest of your life. It's exhausting _me_ just trying to keep up with you."

"I don't _know_ ," Lien replied miserably, burying her face against her knees. "I don't even know _how_ I'm supposed to—"

"I didn't ask what you're _supposed_ to do," Nara interrupted with a snort. "I'm asking what you're _going_ to do."

"What do you _mean?_ " Her eyes were prickling again. " _You're_ the one who said I didn't have a choice."

"You don't have a choice about what you _are!_ " Nara slapped the surface of the sand sailor so hard that Lien jumped, her head jerking up. "I'm talking about what you're gong to _do!_ Those are two completely different things! Oma and Shu, would you _listen_ to me?

"I don't care what anyone tells you you _have_ to do," Nara continued, voice dropping to an angry whisper after a couple of passerby gave them curious looks. "What matters is what you _choose_ to do. Back in the desert, everyone and their mother thought they could tell me what I _had_ to do if I wanted to stay one of them. I could've stayed with my tribe, but that would have meant spending the rest of my life living a lie, so I _chose_ to leave. So, are you going to try to do what needs doing, or aren't you?"

Lien had no answer… any more than she had an answer for anything else.

That night, she still didn't talk to anybody, but she lay awake in bed thinking long after the last dispirited knock at her door was followed by a set of retreating footsteps.

 _Did_ she choose to try and bring the balance that Aang had told her she had to? Her only other option was to run away.

No matter which option she took, she would be facing a yawning abyss of the unknown. If she chose balance, then if what Aang had said was true the whole world would be depending on _her_ to fix it. If she chose to run, she would be facing the whole world completely alone. After their trip through the desert, she thought that she _could_ survive on her own—but she didn't _know_. She felt so betrayed by Zuko and Katara, but… did she really never want to see them again?

Lien let out a breath as it came to her what she would have to do. Like it or not, she did not have enough information to make her choice, and that would mean talking to someone who did.

* * *

"What did you mean?" she whispered into the cold early morning air. "What did you mean when you said that it was the Avatar's job to keep balance?"

Aang looked sad. "In times of peace," he began, "the four nations live together in harmony. Sometimes, however, one nation will become an aggressor."

"So that means that Avatar is supposed to stop them? Phoenix King Ozai… am I going to have to fight him?"

"Unless he has a heart attack tomorrow, I'm afraid so."

"Am I supposed to…" She swallowed. "Am I going to have to kill him?"

She waited for him to lie to her, just like everyone else had lied to her for the past six years, but he didn't. "It's a possibility."

"What if… what if I don't?"

Aang looked at her, and in that moment, even though she was not sure how, she knew that he knew exactly what she'd been thinking. She waited.

"If you refuse your duty as the Avatar," he said slowly, "that is of course a choice you can make. No one will be able to force you otherwise. The world will continue to fall out of balance, because ordinary people don't have the strength to fight back. The Fire Nation will continue to spread its influence; people will continue to die before their time and cultures will continue to be lost—but that option is still open to you.

"Of course, your choice will not break the Avatar cycle. After your death, another Avatar would be born to the next element—and then _that_ person would have the task of restoring balance, as well as having to fix whatever else has happened during your lifetime."

Lien found that she was shivering. She wrapped her arms around herself, her whole body suddenly shaking in the early morning desert chill.

"I'm sorry," she heard Aang saying, as if from a great distance. "The only reason that you got stuck with this job was because I couldn't do mine."

Lien could barely hear him anymore. She was now on her knees in the sand, her hands over her ears as if to block out the truth of what he had said. The sound of her own heartbeat was too loud in the ringing desert silence. The blowing sand and shifting Earth was a cacophony beneath her feet. _Something_ was surging its way through her body, some powerful, primal emotion she didn't have a name for…

"Lien!" Aang was shouting now, she realized, but his words were nearly drowned out by her own pounding heart. "Lien, please listen to me, you have to calm down—"

For the first time in her life, however, Lien wasn't listening to him. For the first time in her life, she didn't _want_ to calm down. In her younger years, the Boy had once been a guide, a protector, a friend in her times of most desperate need. Now, though, he was no longer the Boy, he was Aang: and Aang was fallible, and human, and just as responsible for withholding the truth from her as everyone else. Now, she no longer wanted to hear his voice: she was too caught up in that uncontrollable surge of power.

All of the dunes around her flattened and cracked like glass. Water surged upward from beneath her feet. Compressed sand and water both rose, swirling around her in a deadly dance of jagged edges carried along by the current, the water of her own tears drifting outward to join them…

"Lien! _Lien!_ "

She could not tell who was calling her name. She was not aware of how long they had been shouting. She did not see the bruise on Katara's cheek, or the blood streaming down Zuko's face, or Xi Wang's torn sleeve and the rough abrasions on her arm. The only thing she knew was that the power was leaving her, and that she was falling.

* * *

When Lien blinked her way back to consciousness, she was in her own room, the door was closed and locked, and she was not alone.

Katara was holding a handful of glowing water to the side of her own face, Zuko a square of white gauze to his forehead. As soon as she shifted, though, both were kneeling beside her, worried looks on their faces. "Are you okay?" Katara asked.

Slowly, Lien sat up. Her limbs felt heavy and sluggish, as if she'd recently been ill, but she didn't hurt anywhere and her head was clear, so she nodded.

They both looked relieved, but only for a moment. Grimacing, Zuko lowered the square of gauze, which she now saw was covered with blood from a cut above his eye, and after looking at it for a few seconds pressed it back against his forehead. "We need to talk."

"What happened?" She'd been talking with Aang…

This time, Katara was the one to answer. "You went into the Avatar State again."

Lien stared, suddenly seeing their injuries with new eyes. _She_ had done this?

"Lien…" Katara said gently. "We know you're upset, and we've been trying to give you space. But as you can see, we can't go on like this. It's dangerous—both for you and for everyone around you."

There was nothing that she could say to that, no protest she could make. There was no point in denying it—the evidence was right there in front of her, and she _had_ lost control; she did not know what might happen to make her lose it again. Instead, she drew her knees in close to her chest, wrapped her arms around her shins, and nodded, not making eye contact with either one of them.

"We really have not handled this well." Zuko peeled the gauze away from his forehead again, squinted at the blood, and set it aside before returning his full attention back to her. "For that, we owe you an apology. But what's done is done, and now we need to focus on what comes next."

Lien nodded again, miserably. "Aang said I would have to stop Phoenix King Ozai."

"Aang wasn't wrong. But not just yet. Not for another four years, at least, and not until you've mastered all the elements."

Zuko paused for a moment, as if expecting her to reply. When she didn't, he only took a deep breath and continued. "We think you're ready to start leaning to firebend."

Her stomach clenched, and before she knew it the conversation with Nara came crashing back on her, and she heard herself asking, as if in a dream, "What if I don't?"

Katara and Zuko looked at each other, both of their faces showing an expression of surprised confusion: this was the one question they had not expected her to ask. "Well, the world would fall further out of balance—"

"What does that _mean?_ All of you keep _saying_ that, but nobody will ever explain what it _means!_ Why is it so important for the world to be balanced?"

"Lien…" This time Katara was the one who was talking. "Do you remember anything about your life before we found you? You were born into a big tribe, a _prosperous_ one, but it doesn't exist anymore, because the Fire Nation killed all of its men and captured its healers for slaves—there are hundreds of women living in conditions just as horrible as you used to live in, and not even the Underground can help them all. My tribe was barely clinging on by its fingernails by the time that I left it, because of the Fire Nation raids to take all of our waterbenders. All over the Earth Kingdom, earthbenders are going missing, and nobody can say what's been happening to them. The airbenders, Aang's people, were _wiped out_ over a hundred years ago, and he was the only survivor. There's nowhere in the world anymore where people can live freely." She exchanged a glance with Zuko. "Not even in the Fire Nation.

"If you refuse to do it, of course, no one will be able to force you," Katara continued. "If the Fire Nation isn't stopped, though… things are just going to keep on getting worse. There will be no more free benders _anywhere_ in the world. Women and girls will still spend their lives in slavery. Earthbenders will keep disappearing. The Fire Nation will keep tightening its grip over the rest of the world, and then the Avatar after you will have to clean up _that_ mess—and that's another hundred years or more of suffering for everyone else."

It was almost exactly the same thing that Aang had said: if she chose to do her duty and help the rest of the world, her life was forfeit, but if she didn't, then she would be a selfish monster.

"We're going to help you, of course," Zuko jumped in. "No matter what you decide, we'll be behind you—and if you do decide to take down Ozai, you're going to have a whole lot of people rallying to your side. You don't have to do this alone."

Again, they both paused expectantly, but once again Lien didn't answer. Lien _couldn't_ answer—what was she supposed to _say_ to something this big, to learning that her life was not her own?

"Don't you have questions?" Katara prompted, softly, after a few minutes of silence had passed, but Lien shook her head. There was only one question that she could think of, and it had already been answered.

She really did have no choice.

* * *

 _Was_ she going to run away?

Now that Nara had mentioned it, it was impossible to get the idea out of her head. Yet now that first Aang and then Katara had explained to her how much the world was suffering, she couldn't get _that_ out of her head either.

So many people… so many bad things happening to them because _she_ couldn't act… people, she now realized, just like Katara, and Nori.

What was _she_ supposed to do, though? Just because she could bend more than one element that didn't mean she could magically set the world right. She barely even knew how to fight—how was she supposed to take down a monster?

A couple of times, she even tried to practice her bending—but her heart wasn't in it. She no longer took joy or comfort from her contact with the Earth, and it was as if the sand knew. Now, when she dug her toes into the ground the only thing she could imagine was a spike, driving into someone else's heart.

The rest of the time, she wandered the oasis in a daze. She did not think about controlling the Avatar State. She did not stay indoors long enough for Zuko to bring up firebending again. Given how little attention she was paying to her surroundings, it was nothing more than pure luck that she saw _him_ before he saw her.

* * *

Your trips to the oasis have started to turn into a regular thing.

Of course, _you_ don't have to go. Lien knows her choices now, and she's far too old to still need a babysitter. Even so, though, you continue to accompany her every time. Even now, after Katara and Zuko have cornered her, she's barely said a word and she hasn't changed her routine, and that worries you.

Not to mention she hasn't even _tried_ to start learning firebending—you live with them both, you'd know it if Zuko had started to teach her.

"Didn't they say _anything_ to you?" you ask, exasperated, as you're both eating your lunch atop the sand sailor one day. At least things have gotten past the point where Lien forgets to eat unless you're physically shoving food into her hands.

Infuriatingly, Lien doesn't even give you a proper answer, only nods absently as she chews, staring out at the horizon all the while.

"Well?" you try again, when it becomes clear that she isn't going to talk. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." Lien sets her bowl down and goes back to her staring.

You only sigh, and return to eating your own food.

The rest of the day doesn't look like it's going to go much better. It seems as if _nothing_ is going to break Lien out of her funk. You're sticking close to her, as always, if nothing else to make sure she doesn't get knifed in the back, when you notice her freeze.

Immediately you snap to attention; Lien has only been halfway here ever since learning the truth, it seems, but she's never acted like _this_. Following her gaze, you eventually manage to pick out the man she seems to be looking at.

At first, he doesn't seem particularly out of place: sure, he's a lot paler than most of the locals, but you get those here once in a while; it doesn't necessarily have to mean anything. Then, though, you notice the sneer on his face every time anyone who actually _belongs_ here brushes up too close to him, and the impatient stride with which he bypasses every merchant and shop that could _possibly_ be of interest.

 _Fire Nation_. It's the only explanation that makes sense. Looks like military, too, if the purposeful way he's moving is any indication—he may be out of uniform, but you've spent enough time with Xi Wang to know a soldier when you see one. And true, he might only be here to bust up a smuggling ring, or even to partake in one in a place where his own nation is unlikely to catch him—but the way Lien has frozen in place and started shaking like a frightened jackalope says otherwise.

You can sort out the _why_ of it later, but you didn't live this long by standing around and waiting to see whether or not that sand shark looked hungry today. Taking care to look casual, you come up behind Lien, grasp her by the shoulders, and steer her away.

She flinches so hard you're afraid that she's going to give you away, or worse, is about to go into the Avatar State right there on the spot. By some miracle, though, she doesn't, and you manage to get her behind a building and out of the way of any prying eyes before you stomp your foot, sinking the both of you into a hole in the ground, which you then cover over with a layer of hardened sand.

There's not a whole lot of room for the two of you in there; you were thinking _necessity_ , not _comfort_ , and Lien is pressed right up against you. You can feel her shaking, so hard you're almost afraid it's going to disrupt your hasty work and bring your makeshift shelter crashing down on you both.

For the moment, you just sit there, not saying anything and waiting for Lien's trembling to stop. You're under no illusion that your little stunt will be invisible from the surface, especially to a native sandbender, but you also know that the ones most likely to see it are also the ones least likely to draw attention to it, especially with a Fire Nation soldier prowling so openly around the oasis. People mind their own business here, and _no one_ outside the Fire Nation ever helps the Fire Nation.

You don't try to get her to spill; you know how bad of an idea it is to talk while you're trying to hide. Soon, though, your legs are cramping up and your mouth tastes dry as sand and you know there's only so long you'll both be able to hold out.

"Listen," you say, tilting your head to whisper into Lien's ear. "I'm going to go up and get the sand sailor, and bring it around." Much as you're sure the man, whoever he is, won't be able to recognize her all covered up as she is, you don't think you can count on her to _act_ normally if she has to walk past him. "Wait here, and I'll get us both out of here, okay?"

It actually takes several minutes for the words to get through to her, but after some time and a whole lot more trembling, you feel Lien nod. Nodding in turn, you reach above you, and push up the lid of your shelter so you can see out.

No sign of anyone's passing feet: you're clear. Taking a deep breath, you push yourself up out of the hole before layering the hardened sand back over it to keep Lien hidden.

Now for the sand sailor. You grimace as you realize it's all the way on the other side of the oasis.

Lien's fear has rubbed off on you, it seems, because you're feeling jittery, and like doing something stupid, such as running straight through all the booths and buildings, dashing for the sailor, driving it _back_ through the crowd without regard to who you knock over, and then hightailing it back to the house as fast as your sandbending can take you. You tell yourself not to be an idiot. _Nothing_ is going to draw more attention to yourself than acting panicked and being in a hurry, and so far as you know right now your anonymity is the only advantage you've got.

So, you take your time. You stroll through the oasis, stopping to browse what wares are on display at this time of day, keeping your eyes peeled the whole time for the Fire Nation soldier. He isn't hard to spot; he's not exactly trying to be subtle, and even as you watch from the corner of your eye you see him snag a random passerby by the front of his shirt and begin shouting in his face.

Not good. That's not good at all.

You turn away from the last booth in the market, lengthening your stride. Walk fast _now_ , you think, while he's distracted. When you make it to the sand sailor, you chance a tentative glance back, to see that he's still busy yelling.

The rope is in your hand. Carefully not looking at him directly and carefully not hurrying, you move the glider away, as if you're going out into the desert, before doubling back to the other side of town so you can pick up the kid.

* * *

"Nara. Nara, are you _sure?_ "

"Dead sure. He couldn't have been more obvious about it if he'd climbed up on top of the inn and started shouting it."

Even now, Lien could not stop shaking; she had been seated at the table, with Zuko on one side of her and Katara on the other, their arms wrapped around her protectively. "This Fire Nation soldier—what did he look like?"

"He looked Fire Nation." Zuko and Xi Wang both gave Nara a _look_ , and Nara responded by throwing both hands in the air. "Tall. Square jaw. Pale. I don't think he was in uniform, but he _moved_ like a soldier. Look, I didn't get a good look at him because I was too busy trying to get us both out of there."

"Master." Lien curled in on herself, looking terrified and miserable all at once; though her voice was barely more than a whisper, everyone else in the room was now giving her their full attention. "It's Master."

"Hide." Zuko's voice was a low growl.

"That's what I was afraid of." Xi Wang ran a hand over her face. "Right. Assume that we're compromised, evacuation protocol now."

She didn't need to say anything more. They'd all done this drill before—hoping, every time, that it would never need to become reality.

The emergency supplies were all stashed away in one of the hidden rooms in the basement, in case they had to leave in a hurry: sleeping bags, tents, nonperishable food… it was not a question of _whether_ they would leave, or _how_. No, right now there was only one question that mattered.

"So," Nori began quietly, as the group of them stood in the suddenly bare and much less welcoming kitchen. Time was not quite of the essence; they had not been found yet, but neither did they have unlimited leisure, and everyone was tense. "Do we stick together, or do we separate?"

Xi Wang tapped her finger against her arm. "I'd say that that depends on 'we'." She turned to Zuko and Katara. "What's _your_ plan of action?"

"We don't want to get close to Hide if it's at all possible to avoid him," Zuko answered. "If he doesn't have an airship available, that means we're safest going away from him, and that means going back through the desert."

Xi Wang nodded. "And Nara can't go through the desert." She turned to the sandbender. "In which case, it's up to you."

"Wait, what?" Nara looked between her and Nori, with an expression of confusion that was just on the border of panic.

"Do you want to risk crossing the desert with them," Nori asked gently, "and hope that you won't be recognized? Or do you want to go back through the oasis, since yours is the only face that isn't already known to Hide?"

For a moment Nara stood, thinking, but then nodded. "I've already taught the kid everything I can. Smaller groups are harder to track. And…" Nara's eyes flicked to Nori and Xi Wang. "You won't be able to keep doing your thing if we're constantly on the run with them. No offense."

At those words, everyone in the household let out a breath. There was nothing more to say. Supplies were loaded onto the sand sailor and the ostrich-horse. Money was portioned out as fairly as could be managed. Within minutes they were out front of the house, Katara tugging the ropes on the sand sailor and Xi Wang holding the reins of the ostrich-horse.

Without speaking, the two groups moved forward to clasp hands with each other. Once all of their silent goodbyes had been finished, Nara stomped a foot, and streamers of sand rose up to punch through the walls at their weak points, causing the old house to collapse in a clatter of wood and dust. Now it looked as if it had not been lived in for decades.

Then, they turned and rode off in opposite directions, not daring to hope that they would meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, it's _this_ part. Heroic BSOD for several chapters on end, go! (I hope Lien's behavior here doesn't seem _too_ inconsistent with the rest of her characterization, but she _has_ had quite a shock...)


	3. Grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "I Grieve" by Peter Gabriel
> 
>  **Warnings:** This chapter contains brief mentions of animal cruelty (in the context of killing for food), and non-graphic descriptions of menstruation

The sand sailor could only take them to the edge of the desert. After that, they had to walk.

They had to remain mobile; they could not carry much. Zuko and Katara had their weapons. Katara had her waterskin, and Zuko had the tent. They _all_ had food and medicine stuffed into the packs they carried on their backs, and a spare change of clothes, in addition to whatever tools they'd been able to gather on such short notice.

At a glance, they looked like any normal Earth Kingdom family: Katara in a plain green dress trimmed with beige, Zuko in a dark brown tunic and leggings, and Lien following behind them in her own stiff unfamiliar dress and a hairstyle she'd never worn before, which made her feel as if any sudden movement might knock the ring from her hair and send it flowing back to its natural state.

Away from another home. Away into another unknown. All because of the way she'd been born—because of what she was.

Though Lien had the vague thought that she ought to be feeling something, at the outset, she was mostly numb. At first, all of her concentration was needed for driving the sand sailor. When they hit the edge of the desert, however, and the sand turned to scrub over which the glider could not move, Lien looked out over the vast, unfamiliar landscape and felt something shift in her chest—something that felt like pain.

There was no going back.

* * *

The first night away from the desert, she cried in her corner of the tent. Despite her efforts to muffle her sobs, Zuko and Katara heard and tried one after the other to comfort her, but she pushed them both away, turning instead to curl into the wall of the tent.

* * *

As they moved on, the land gentled and greened. Slowly, ever so slowly, flat scrubland gave way to rolling hills of undulating grass that stretched away under an open sky as far as the eye could see.

The first time they camped by a stream, Katara practically ran over and started rolling in it. She spent the rest of the evening practicing her waterbending, and would have missed dinner if Zuko hadn't called her over three times in a row.

Lien did not join her.

She sat on a nearby rock, arms curled around her knees, and watched as Katara splashed around in the water. Though Katara did try to wave her over, Lien turned away without answering and faced the other direction.

* * *

That night, Aang came to her again.

She did not go far this time, only picked her way around behind the tent. Aang's ghostly form hovered in front of her as she sank cross-legged onto the ground.

"You haven't started training in firebending yet."

It wasn't a question, but Lien still shook her head.

"It's okay to be afraid," he said gently. "But you can't suppress it forever, and you can't keep running away. At least talk to Zuko, he might be able to help you—"

She got up and walked away before he could finish.

* * *

"Lien."

It was not necessary for her to turn around to see that it was Zuko: she recognized his voice, and the warmth of his hand. She did not look up at him.

"I know you don't want to, and I understand that you're scared. But there's something we need to start that we're long overdue for."

She did not resist him. Right now she did not feel as if she had the energy to do _anything_ , much less argue—only to get up, and follow after him when he led her over to a large, flat rock that rested beside the water.

Zuko motioned for her to sit down atop the rock. Once she was seated, he settled himself down across from her.

Holding out his hands, he breathed into his palms. A small flame came to life in between his cupped fingers, a spot of yellow brightness against the evening light.

"I want you to see if you can reach out and take it."

Her eyes grew wide. The hot little tongue of flame danced his hands, but as Lien watched it, she wasn't seeing Zuko's face, she was seeing her Master, his expression twisted with rage as a long whip of fire snapped out of his fingers…

Lien turned from him, throwing up a hand to block the sight of the fire. "I _can't_ ," she insisted, her face burning with shame.

"Okay." She had expected Zuko to push, but instead he only closed his hands on the flame, letting it evaporate into a puff of smoke. "I thought it might be worth a try, but it looks like you aren't ready for that yet."

She said nothing, only stared at the surface of the rock beneath her crossed legs. For as long as she could remember, she'd been so terrified of disappointing Zuko… now, though, she only felt a dull lurch in her belly at his understanding.

"Lien. Look at me."

Slowly, reluctantly, she obeyed. He held her gaze intently.

"We're going to take this slow, okay? Not learning firebending isn't an option, but I do want you to learn at a pace you're comfortable with." He held out his palms again, and once more the small flame blossomed into life. Lien flinched, but he did not ask her to take control of it again.

"First lesson," he started. "Firebending—" he inhaled, "comes from the breath." She watched, fascinated, as the tiny flame grew and shrank with the rising and falling of his chest.

"Now you try it," he instructed. "Just breathe."

The little tongue of fire pulsed in front of her. First taking one long deep breath to steady her nerves, Lien stared into it, and breathed.

* * *

Day by day, they trudged through an empty, ever-changing wilderness. Night by night, Zuko sat across from her and taught her to meditate to a dancing flame.

All the while, the only thing she could think of was what she would eventually have to _do_ with that flame.

"I can't do it," she insisted at night, when Aang came to her in the privacy of her own head.

"You _can_ ," he insisted in turn, his voice infuriatingly calm. "You can, and you have to accept that this is a part of you—just like I had to accept it."

No choice but to accept it—like she'd had to accept her Master's lash. Like she'd accepted the Old Woman's and the Boy's promises without any real understanding of _what_ exactly they were promising.

That night, her bladder woke her from an uneasy sleep. Just like she had on any number of other nights, she slipped quietly from the tent, being careful not to wake Zuko or Katara as she stepped over their sleeping bodies. Just like she had on any number of other nights, she walked a decent distance away before she squatted down behind a shrub.

When she stood, carefully tugging her skirts straight, she was now wide awake. Lien looked back at the tent. She tilted her head back to look up at the wide sky above her.

Then, without being aware that she was going to do it, she turned away from the camp and started walking alone into the night.

"What are you _doing!?_ " Almost immediately Aang was by her side, hovering ghostly blue beside her as she walked.

"I can't do this," she repeated. Even she was surprised by how calm her voice sounded.

"Please, Lien, you have to stop and think for a minute." Aang now sounded frantic, appearing first on one side and then on the other, before hovering directly in front of her so that she had to squint through him to see where she was going. She tried to dispel him with an impatient wave of her arm, but her fingers passed right through him as if he wasn't even there. "Running away isn't going to solve anything. I know you think it's bad now, but trust me, it can get so much worse—"

"Worse like having to leave my home again?" She did not slow her pace. "Worse like learning that everyone's been lying to me my whole life? Worse like having to fight—" She choked on her words, and did not go on. Aang of all people shouldn't need to be reminded of the man who'd executed him with a grin and a burst of flame.

"That's _exactly_ what I'm talking about! You have no idea how much worse things can get if you deal with your problems by running away from them. If you'd just listen—"

Lien wasn't listening, though, and after a few more minutes of pleading, Aang faded away. He seemed to have realized he was not going to convince her to stop.

* * *

By the time the first faint light appeared on the horizon, the initial rush at her own daring had worn off enough that she could feel her eyelids drooping, and Lien knew that she could not keep going much longer.

She looked around her. The endless rolling grasses of the plains were just beginning to acquire a bit of color and outline in the faint predawn light. A light breeze blew, but other than that, the world was still.

The direction from which she had come looked no different from any other direction. If she hadn't been missed by now, she would be soon, but she had already set her own course: Lien could not find her way back now even if she tried.

Exhausted, she dropped where she was and curled up in the grass to sleep.

* * *

As Lien slept, she dreamed of Aang.

In her dream she saw Aang being told, unexpectedly as she had, that he was the Avatar. Day by day, she watched his loneliness and isolation grow. She saw him learning of the decision to take him away from the man who had raised him. The dream lasted until Aang and Appa were plunged into the ocean where they froze, and she awoke with a gasp.

Grass stuck to her skin as she sat up, and her body ached from all the rocks and irregularities that she had been sleeping on top of. Her stomach rumbled, and her mouth was as dry as a bone.

It was impossible to know whether the dream was an actual memory or a warning from Aang, and she refused to ask. Instead, she got to her feet, and continued on her way.

The act of leaving had been spontaneous: she had not thought to pack anything, and would not have had the nerve to go back for supplies even if it had occurred to her. She had no food or water, no toiletries or changes of clothes, no spark rocks or knife. She had no bedding or shelter.

Water was not a problem. This place was far more humid than the desert, and Lien had been living in the desert for a very long time. Even when she couldn't find a stream, it was easy enough to pull water out of the air or even the soil, and suck the ice from her hands or even stream it directly into her mouth. It was always clean; she knew well enough the technique that Katara and Nara had used in tandem whenever cleanliness was important, Katara pulling the water one way and Nara pulling the dirt in another. Lien, unlike them, was capable of doing it alone, and of course, now she knew why.

Food was not a problem. She knew all the edible roots and berries in this region of the Earth Kingdom; Katara had drilled her on them as they'd walked, when she'd been trying to draw Lien into some form of conversation. Then, she had only answered mechanically, but now that it was actually important she found that she _could_ remember, and even though her stomach soon started to rumble on a diet of berries alone, Lien knew that she would not starve. When she reached a stream, it was no trouble at all for her to pull a long, flopping fish directly into her hands.

For a few moments, Lien stared at the slimy squirming thing in her hands as it desperately thrashed and gasped for water. Cooking it would not have been a problem, except she didn't have…

… _fire_.

In the end, she laid it on the bank and bashed its head in with a rock, cringing as it stopped flopping and its desperate struggles for life abruptly ceased. Then, she brought it to her mouth and ate it raw.

* * *

That afternoon, clouds gathered overhead, and the drizzle that began shortly thereafter quickly became a downpour that lasted well into the night. Once again, Lien felt her eyelids drooping, but she forced herself to stagger onward through the mud while bending herself her own private bubble of dryness, because she knew that to stop and lie down in the rain was to court illness she might not be able to manage on her own.

It must have been halfway through the night by the time the rain finally stopped, and Lien was almost ready to drop where she was, illness or no. It was only by sheer luck that she managed to find a large rock that was high enough off the ground to stay dry once she cleared the water from its surface, and to find it before the point where she would have decided to simply give up and lie down in the mud.

She was just settling down to make herself as comfortable as possible when a blaze of fire lit up the night sky.

Jolting wide awake, she sat bolt upright to watch the sky. The flame lit the sky in the same direction from which she'd come, and repeated itself until there had been a total of four flares, and then it stopped for a moment only to be followed by two more flares, then a pause, then another two.

 _Zuko_.

It had to be Zuko, and he had to be signaling her. Shooting the special signal of the Underground into the sky on a dark night had to be incredibly dangerous for him and Katara, but still he threw his fire into the night so Lien would have the means to find her way back to them if only she chose to turn around and start walking.

Lien sat up atop her rock, drew her legs in close against her chest, wrapped her arms around her shins, and watched the sky. The signal never stopped repeating for as long as she stayed awake, but she did not move for the rest of the night.

* * *

At first, she assumed she had eaten something bad, and panicked at the thought that she had poisoned herself. The signal flares had stopped shortly after sunrise, so even if she did change her mind and decide to go for help, the only thing she'd be able to do before night fell was to wander aimlessly and shout, hoping that she'd be heard.

She calmed down slightly as the morning went on and the stomach cramps got steadily worse but she neither vomited nor collapsed, but it wasn't until she next stopped to relieve herself that she began to develop another suspicion. It was confirmed when she gingerly reached a hand up to the place in between her legs, and her fingers came away sticky and darkened with blood.

Katara had told her, during the private lessons she'd started shortly after Lien had reached her eleventh year, that a girl's first blood was incredibly special. There was supposed to be a ceremony, a rite of passage for her first steps into womanhood. Katara would have wanted to celebrate this moment with her.

That night, she watched the flares go up from where she curled on her makeshift bed of grass, and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

During the first day, Aang had been a constant companion, telling her again and again that running away wasn't the answer and that she needed to accept the truth. Then, this morning, after she had gone a full day and then some without acknowledging him, he had abruptly vanished.

"I've been trying to guide you by sharing my own experiences," he'd said, sadly, as she was bedding down and determinedly ignoring him. "But I can see now that this is something you need to figure out on your own." When she'd woken up, true to his word, he'd been nowhere to be found.

Now, she sat, staring up at the rapidly darkening sky, and sighed.

Was this any way to live?

Of course, she had never intended to wander the Earth Kingdom wilderness forever. If she walked long enough, she _would_ eventually make it to a town. It would be easy enough to pass herself off as a nonbender, an Earth Kingdom citizen… she could get directions, trade basic work in return for food and shelter… eventually, she might even be able to make it back to the desert.

…if she made it back to the desert, what would she do then?

Everyone she'd known while she had lived there was gone, the house they had shared now reduced to a wreckage of splintered wood. She could not go back to the oasis either; her Master was there, looking for her.

If she went to the sandbenders, would they be willing to take her in? Nara had said quite a bit about their rigid laws and quick tempers, but Lien could not imagine that anything the sandbenders demanded of her would be worse than the treatment she'd received at the hands of her various masters. She knew how to survive in the desert, and her sandbending was good enough and her skin dark enough that if she put her mind to it, she could probably pass for one of them.

Yes, she was sure that she _could…_ but did she actually _want_ to?

The thought of starting over in yet another place, surrounded by people she did not know, without even Zuko and Katara there to guide her, was almost unbearable. Even so, however, the alternative…

To face a monster, and possibly die, or allow him to keep hurting others. There was no easy choice here… but she _did_ have a choice.

Ever since the day she had been born, she had had no choices about her life. She had had no choice when she had been kidnapped and enslaved. She had had no choice about being born Aang's successor. Even after Zuko had saved her and taken her out of the fortress, he and Katara had given her no options. Learn to bend water. Learn to bend sand. Move to the forest. Move to the desert. Be the Avatar…

"When I learned that Monk Gyatso had died defending the Air Temple against the Fire Nation while I'd been frozen in the ice doing nothing for the past hundred years, I just about lost my mind." Aang had returned while she thought, and now stood beside her staring out over the empty grasslands at the fire signal that had not stopped, night after night. "I saw his dead body—it had been so long that there were only bones left. I went into the Avatar State right there on the spot. I would have blown everyone right off the mountain if Katara hadn't managed to calm me down."

In her mind's eye, she saw it: Aang, younger Katara, and the other, dark-skinned boy who'd appeared in some of Aang's other memories but whom she'd never yet heard named. Aang, eyes glowing, surrounded by swirling gusts of wind; Katara talking to him steadily as she walked into the maelstrom…

"There hasn't been a single day since then where I haven't wondered how much time we might have had together if I hadn't tried to run away from the truth," Aang continued quietly. "If I'd stayed and worked _with_ him to find some sort of solution. There hasn't been a single day where I haven't thought of something I would have liked to share with him, but I'm never going to get a chance to say any of it now. He was the closest thing to a father that I ever had, and I lost him forever thanks to one rash act."

Lien let out a small gasp as he talked. Everything he said was hitting far too close to home.

"I'm not saying it's going to be perfect, and I'm not saying you don't have some really rough times ahead of you either way. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that destiny has a way of finding you whether you meet it willingly or not. Wouldn't you rather meet it on your own terms, and with people who will do anything they can to help you standing by your side?"

There were tears streaming down her face as she curled into herself atop the rock. She didn't want to firebend. She didn't want to be the Avatar. She didn't want to face the Phoenix King. Zuko and Katara had kept so much from her… but that didn't mean she never wanted to see them again.

Lien pushed herself to her feet and started walking back the way that she'd come: back toward the direction of the fire.

Even after it went out, she did not falter. She simply kept walking in what she hoped was a straight line, fixing her gaze on a distant hill or on a star if one was available. When it came again, reliable as ever, she corrected her course if need be and kept walking.

She had lost count of the number of times the signal flare had shot into the sky by the time she came within sight of its source. Zuko had a grayish cast to his skin and was staggering slightly as he walked. Katara's hair was in complete disarray, as if she'd been tearing it out by its roots for several days on end. Both of them had dark circles under their eyes.

When they spotted her, they stared for a second—but only a second. Then, they were both of them rushing down the hill at once, until they slammed into her one after the other.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again," Katara sobbed. Lien could not answer. Already she was swaying on her feet.

"We thought we'd lost you." Zuko was gripping her shoulders with both hands. "We were terrified that you'd gone for good, do you hear me?"

"I know," she whispered. "I… I was scared. I wasn't thinking."

"Evidently not." Katara shook her head slightly to drive her point home, but then took a step back and looked her over with a critical eye. "Are you well?"

Too shamed to speak further, Lien simply nodded.

There were other questions, as they walked her back to camp, neither of them seeming to want to break physical contact. What had she been eating? Had she been sure to drink clean water? Had she encountered this or that dangerous animal or plant? Was she _sure_ she wasn't feeling ill?

Lien fumbled her way through the answers, but by the time they had finally come within sight of the tent, she was beginning to wonder if maybe she actually _was_ ill. Her vision was beginning to blur, and her body was feeling weaker with every step she took.

 _I'm just tired_ , she told herself even as she denied out loud that anything was wrong. _I don't think I got a single good night's sleep ever since I left. I probably wasn't eating as much as I needed to either; I was hungry all the time. I've been up all night, and I've been really stressed, and…_

That was her last coherent thought before she collapsed mid-sentence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might have noticed that I've decided to merge what was previously Chapters 2 and 3, since I decided that it would work better both thematically and in terms of pacing.


	4. Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "Event Horizon" (Smoldering Mix) by Blue Stone

They'd been going out of their minds with worry.

" _I taught her everything I know about how to survive in the wilderness,_ " Katara had said for what had felt like the thousandth time, pacing back and forth so much her feet had worn a bare spot in the grass. " _You taught her everything you know about navigation. She'll make it back to us. She_ has _to._ "

It had not been the first time she had repeated that reassurance, nor would it be the first time that Zuko had repeated it back to her. They'd both voiced the same line of reasoning, again and again and again, as the days had passed by one after another and the rain had washed away her trail and Zuko had shot his signal fire into the sky night after night until he was on the verge of collapse from exhaustion and Lien had not come back. Lien knew how to survive on her own, and this was an environment far less harsh than the Si Wong desert. She would make it back to them. She _had_ to.

They'd both carefully avoided mentioning the possibility that she might not _want_ to.

" _We failed her,_ " Zuko had said morosely as he'd collapsed onto a rock—Katara had made him stop firebending once the sun had crested the horizon and told him to sit down before he fell down; he'd been turning gray, and his hands had been shaking. " _It was our job to… to…_ " He'd hung his head. " _We failed._ "

Katara had only rubbed his back, and said nothing, because she'd feared he was right: they'd been so caught up in responding to the immediate physical danger that they'd forgotten they were dealing with a child who'd been ripped away from her home, whose entire life had been turned upside-down. Everything Lien had said and done since that morning in the desert had been a cry for help, and they hadn't done enough to answer it…

When they'd seen her cresting the hill several days after she'd disappeared in the dead of night, it had seemed almost too good to be true. They'd both been touching her, wrapping their arms around her shoulders and back, half-afraid she'd vanish again if they broke physical contact. She was thinner than she'd been before she'd left, and had dark circles under her eyes; she must have walked all night in order to follow Zuko's fire. Her clothing and skin alike were covered in mud, and her hair had long ago straggled out of whatever bonds had previously tamed it, matting all down her back in a way that looked like it was going to be near-impossible to untangle.

Even so, she had not starved, or dehydrated, or poisoned herself by accident. She had not driven herself to collapse. She had not been hurt. Though Katara was briefly concerned about the bloodstains on her dress, a couple of gentle questions revealed the reason to be a cause for celebration rather than alarm.

"We can still celebrate," she said in an undertone while Zuko pretended not to hear, though his furious blushing still gave him away. "It can wait until after you've gotten cleaned up and had a chance to rest."

That was what they'd been hoping for: now that the crisis was past, they'd all be able to rest, and recuperate, and start to work through this—as a _family_ , the way they were supposed to. Instead, barely had they reached the camp when Lien's legs gave out from under her and she collapsed in a dead faint.

Thankfully Zuko managed to catch her before she hit the ground, and immediately Katara was pressing water to her chest with one hand and bare fingers to her forehead with the other. Her first thought was that it must be the exhaustion and lack of sleep catching up with her at last, though it was impossible to banish the thought that Lien had forgotten or misremembered her lessons and eaten something poisonous, but the second she made physical contact she could feel the intense heat that was now radiating out from her body. She'd had a hand on Lien's shoulder not five minutes earlier, and noticed nothing: the fever had sprung up almost between one breath and the next.

"She must have drunk bad water after all," Katara said with despair. If it was an infection, her healing could not touch it: she could only provide support, and hope that Lien was strong enough to ride it out on her own. Zuko's hands were shaking as he brushed her hair back from her forehead, but even as he gently scooped Lien into his arms to carry her the rest of the way to the tent, he turned to Katara with a pensive look in his eyes.

"I think there might be another explanation."

* * *

Burning. She was burning up inside her own skin.

_Fire_. Try as she might, there was nothing she could do to stop the fire. _Destiny has a way of finding you whether you meet it willingly or not…_

"Lien. Lien, can you hear me?"

Dry, crusty eyes cracked open, to see a silhouette above her that her fever-clouded mind barely recognized as Zuko. "I cleaned the water. I didn't eat anything I wasn't supposed to. I thought—"

"It's okay. We know you must have been careful. Listen."

Zuko's hand rested lightly against her shoulder. It was hard to focus, but she turned to him as he spoke, if nothing else to hear the sound of his voice.

"This… what you're going through now, I don't think it's a normal illness. I think it's a spiritual experience. You've always avoided things that you're afraid to face, and when you decided to turn around and come back…" He swallowed. "Agni, I wish you didn't have to face this, but…" He shook his head. "Right now, you're at war within yourself. You're going to have to fight that battle to a conclusion if you want to pull through."

Lien closed her eyes. Right now, the only thing she could think was that she was exhausted, and fighting was the _last_ thing she wanted to do.

* * *

Katara brought another load of water back to the tent, bending a large blob of it over her head. They'd been sleeping in shifts again, one of them staying by Lien's side at all times while the other took a turn to rest. Katara had been out fetching water and searching for whatever medicinal plants could be scrounged up in the middle of this forsaken wilderness.

Right now Zuko was sitting on the floor of the tent next to Lien, grasping her hand. Without a word, Katara chilled some of the water so they could dip in pieces of cloth that were then pressed to Lien's forehead and neck; while he was doing that, she ground up some of the roots she'd dug up, and boiled the bark that she'd stripped to make a strong medicinal tea. The root paste was applied to Lien's chest; Zuko was the one to prop her up and make her swallow the tea.

"Don't want it," Lien protested as Zuko held the cup to her lips.

"You don't want that fever to keep going up, either." He didn't move the cup, or let her lie back down. "Please, just drink. I know it doesn't taste good, but it might help you feel a bit better."

Only after she had finished what was in the cup did he let her lie back down, coughing weakly. He and Katara exchanged worried looks across the tent. It was the only thing they could do.

All of the rest would be up to Lien.

"I've been through this before," Zuko reminded Katara as Lien tossed and turned under the blankets, in the throes of an uneasy sleep. "I survived."

He did not add that when _he_ had succumbed, it had been in the middle of bustling Ba Sing Se, with a real roof over his head and food and medicine only a short walk away. Here, they had only Katara's healing water and what little nature provided.

_She will be strong. She has to._

* * *

She was surrounded by fire.

Sometimes, she was simply burning. Others, she relived in vivid detail some of the worst memories of her life, and would attempt to flee her Master's lash only to find herself tangled in her bedroll and Zuko or Katara holding on to her, cajoling her to please lie back down, she needed to rest.

When she came back to herself and remembered where she was, she drank and drank and drank, but it seemed as if no amount of water could drown the flames that now seemed to be eating her alive.

There was a fire inside her, and it wanted _out_.

" _You're no good to me if they're no good to me!_ "

" _Everything I have is useless!_ "

" _Animal!_ "

"No no no," she pleaded, "he'll hurt me, I can't, don't make me—"

"You have to," her Master gloated back, a sadistic grin on his face. "The only reason for your existence is to do what I tell you. You're nothing more than an animal that's forgotten its place."

She turned to run, only to come face to face with Aang.

"You have to face him."

"I don't want to face him. I _can't!_ "

"You can. The whole world is depending on you."

Frantically, she turned to look behind her. Her Master was approaching at a leisurely pace, a fire whip in his hand. With a gasp, she turned to run again, but Aang was still in front of her and he would not move.

"You can't escape your destiny."

The ground cracked beneath her, a chasm opened underneath her feet, and when she could not move either forward or back, Lien tumbled downward into a roiling river of flames.

* * *

Once again, Lien cried out in her sleep. Once again, Zuko moved to replace the wet cloth on her forehead. She was shaking and drenched in sweat, her skin so hot to the touch it almost burned.

When he'd gone through this, _his_ nightmare visions had been bad enough. He did not want to think what _she_ must be reliving.

"Come on, Lien," he said softly as she tossed and turned and threw her hands in front of her face as if to block a blow, jerking away from his touch when he tried to comfort her. "We're here for you. I know you can do this. _Fight it._ "

* * *

" _Fight me._ "

Her Master approached her from across a burning plain, the fire in his hand flickering with every breath of the ash-choked wind. He was powerfully built, chiseled muscles rippling across his shirtless torso, and his eyes burned with the same cruel fire he held in his hands. Try as she might, Lien could see no opening, no weakness.

"You know your destiny," the man before her continued. "And I do not tolerate weakness."

As he spoke, a wall of flames sprung up around them, higher than her head. No—higher than the tallest tree she'd ever seen. There was no escape—it was him, or the fire.

Smoke was rising all around her; she could not breathe. Lien collapsed to her hands and knees. Looking up through streaming eyes, she saw her Master's grin. He breathed the searing air with perfect ease, basking in the power of his element.

Even as she weakened, a flaming hand reached down to grab her by the hair. As he pulled her up, the flames around them wavered just enough for her to see a figure through them, the arrows on his head and hands lit up with a glowing blue light—but his only response to her cries for help was to turn away.

" _I can't help you anymore._ "

* * *

…she wasn't going to make it through this, was she?

It wasn't just a matter of how she felt; she had felt awful before, many times, and still lived. No: it was the way that Zuko and Katara were reacting, the urgent whispers she could hear through the ground even if not with her ears, the increasing desperation with which they urged her to not give up, to _fight_.

She didn't have to ask what would happen if she died: she already knew. She would be reincarnated. Her soul would go on to be born into a new body, an earthbender, with no memories and everything to learn all over again. Lien as she knew herself would still be around, though: like Aang, comforting and encouraging the new Avatar, sharing the things that had gone before, telling the stories of her failures…

Two hands, the backs painted with blue arrows, came to rest on each of hers. " _My friends wouldn't let me give up, and I'm not going to let you give up either._ "

…she didn't want to die; she never had. If she wanted to make it through this, though, the only way was to face what she needed to do in order to _live_.

" _They won't be able to protect you forever… but I do know them, and I know they're going to do whatever they can to teach you to protect yourself._ "

Her destiny wasn't going to go away. If the fire wouldn't let her through, the only way out was to face the man.

" _They're not going to be there forever. Eventually, you'll have no choice but to fend for yourself. Now get up._ "

Slowly, she dragged herself to her feet. The flames leaped higher around her. " _You have choices. Destiny isn't an option… it's what you choose to_ do _about it that matters._ "

Lien closed her eyes. She stepped forward. Once again, the rift opened beneath her, and this time, she let herself tumble into it.

Freezing water enveloped her at the end of her fall. Opening her eyes, Lien could see the Moon far above her, its surface distorted as it filtered down through the waves. Between her and the Moon, there were two fish, one black and one white, circling each other in an endless circle above her.

_What will you do?_ the black fish asked. _The time for thinking and wavering is over._

_I don't know_ , she thought back desperately.

_Yes you do. You would not be here if you had not already decided._

_You would not be here if you had not already decided_ , the white fish echoed. She spoke kindly, her voice a woman's voice. _The entire course of history will be driven by the decision that you make now. Choose wisely._

Lien squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Then, she reached upward.

Two hands plunged down into the water on either side of her, one of them pale, the other as brown as her own. When she reached out to them, their fingers grasped her own hands and pulled her from the water.

When she woke, she was drenched in sweat, and was intensely hungry and thirsty as she had not felt in days—but the fire was no longer devouring her, and the dreams had stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, the bad news is that one of my housemates was exposed to someone who was confirmed infected literally the next day, so my household is under a strict self-quarantine for the next two weeks. None of us are showing any symptoms as of yet *fingers crossed*, but... yeah. Fun times.


	5. Acceptance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "The Drop" by Peter Gabriel

Katara had told her to take a couple of days to recover before she tried training again, and one full day to rest and do whatever she wanted. Firebending could not wait forever, but it could wait a couple of days.

Lien did not know what do to when she was left to herself.

She was too old for games, and she had nothing to read nor supplies to write. Whenever she tried to help out with the chores, Katara shooed her away. Feeling restless, and inexplicably ill at ease in her own skin, Lien got up and began to walk aimlessly.

She could feel the eyes on the back of her head as her footsteps took her in ever-widening circles away from the tent, and knew that neither Zuko nor Katara was going to let her fully out of their sight until they could be sure she wasn't going to run away again. They needn't have bothered. She had come back of her own will, and however much she might dread this, Lien knew that she had made her choice. She intended to see it through.

Aang was nowhere to be found; it seemed as if he agreed with Katara that she needed some time to herself. So, Lien wandered alone with her thoughts as she gazed out over the barren, uninhabited landscape, learning the shape of the Earth as her feet took her over the hills and rocks, up the course of the stream and then back down it again.

The morning was halfway over when she crested a hill, only to find Zuko waiting for her at the bottom.

"Walk with me?"

Lien knew he didn't want her getting too far from the camp. Still, she could read his tone and knew that this was not a command: it was a request.

After a few moments, she nodded and fell into step beside him.

"Katara and I have talked," he started as they picked out a route parallel to the stream, "and we've decided it's time for you to know everything. No more secrets. There's too much for us to tell you everything at once, but we won't deliberately keep anything from you, and we want you to know that from now on, if there's anything you want to know—about the war, about Aang, about being the Avatar—it's yours for the asking."

It was an invitation, one that she immediately recognized. Even so, Lien chewed her lip for a few minutes before answering. Now that the biggest secret was finally out in the open, she was only just beginning to realize how much of her life up to this point had been kept hidden from her, and while no one in her memory had ever outright _lied_ to her when she'd inadvertently brought up a sensitive subject, they'd still evaded and deflected and put her off with promises to talk about it later. It was one thing to wonder, another thing entirely to know that she could now ask a direct question, and promptly get straight answers from the same people who had already spent so much time and effort to hide the truth from her.

Then, too, as many questions as she did have, now that she had an open invitation to ask anything she liked, the sheer number of possibilities was nearly overwhelming. What should she ask first? She wanted to know more about what she was. She wanted to know what, specifically, she was expected to do. She wanted to know why she was the _only_ Avatar, why it was that this burden could never be shared.

In the end, she drew on Katara's lessons on how to prioritize if she ever needed to survive alone in the wilderness, and started sorting her questions according to how badly she needed them answered and who would best be able to answer them. Zuko did not rush her, only walked beside her in silence, as she separated out which questions were urgent to her situation and which were the ones she only _wanted_ to know. She considered who she was talking to, and what Zuko specifically would best be able to tell her, what she would probably be better off asking Katara, and which sorts of things she would likely only be able to learn from Aang. In the end, however, it only came down to one thing, and she had to ask the question that she most desperately needed answered.

"What can you tell me about the Phoenix King?"

Zuko stopped walking, and she could see him grimace. At first, she was afraid he wasn't going to answer, that he'd only _said_ they were going to share information in order to make her feel better, but then he gestured to a wide rock by the side of the stream, and they both took a seat, Lien dangling her feet in the water.

"There are a lot of things I can tell you about Ozai," Zuko started after they were both settled, "and you should probably know all of them." He took a deep breath. "First of all, he's my father."

Lien whipped her head around to stare at him. _Now_ she realized exactly what it was that had bothered her about Ozai's face: it was that he _looked like Zuko_. Or, more accurately, Zuko looked like _him_.

Zuko watched her steadily, gauging her reaction. Lien, in her turn, was intently studying his profile, marking the similarities. If she focused on the good side of his face, and ignored his shorter hair and lack of a beard… the eyes didn't prove anything; _every_ firebender she'd ever met had eyes that were some degree of yellow, but when she studied everything _else_ , he had the same angular features, from the shape of his nose all the way down to the set of his jaw. The same skin tone. The same build.

Then, too, there were other things, little things. The fact that she'd heard both Xi Wang and Nara occasionally refer to him as "Prince". A few snatches of conversation, half-remembered now, about him being wanted by the Fire Nation. Things she'd never considered before because they'd simply been another part of life, but which now came together to make a terrible amount of sense.

"I can assure you, I didn't choose my parentage."

With a guilty start, Lien realized that she'd been staring at him and saying nothing for what must have been several minutes. "It's not that." She shook her head. "It's just… a lot."

Zuko nodded, as if he knew exactly what she had been thinking. "Unfortunately, it gets a whole lot worse." For a moment, he hesitated, but then lifted up a hand to touch the left side of his face. "I think it's time I told you how I got this."

Now, Lien's study of his face shifted to the mass of hardened scar tissue on his left side. She'd known, of course, that he must have been burned very badly at some point in the past, but she'd never before considered where the scar had come from: it was a part of his face, as much as his nose or the color of his eyes. Even so, there was some part of her that had always known it could not have been an accident, and now a dark certainty was slowly crystallizing in the pit of her stomach…

He must have seen the realization dawning on her face, for he gave a small nod. "This can wait, if you want. It's a hard story, and you've already had a lot to take in."

For a moment, Lien stared out across the water. She thought of her own scars, the way that Nori and sometimes even Katara had often flinched at the sight of them, but Zuko never had. "What did he do?" she asked at last, quietly.

Zuko let out a breath. "I was thirteen. I'd managed to find my way into a war meeting even though I wasn't supposed to be there. One of the generals had proposed a plan that involved sacrificing Fire Nation soldiers, new recruits, in order to gain a strategic advantage, and I spoke out against it.

"The problem was, I was very young, and not yet trusted with any military responsibility. I had only been let in to observe on the condition that I remain silent. I was _right_ , but that didn't matter: by speaking out of turn, I had showed disrespect, and as a form of retribution I was expected to fight a fire duel—an Agni Kai.

"I thought, when I agreed, that I'd be fighting the same general I'd spoken out against. Except I'd been in Ozai's war room and spoken out of turn during Ozai's meeting. Therefore I was going to have to face Ozai, and I wasn't prepared until I turned around and saw him standing across from me."

Lien shuddered. "What did you do?"

"I refused to fight. I was so devoted to him back then that I couldn't do it. I was acting out of respect, but he took it as a sign of weakness."

There was no need to ask what had happened next. The evidence was, quite literally, burned onto Zuko's face.

"Understand, Ozai had never considered me to be worth anything, much less cared about me. I have my doubts as to whether he even knows what love is." Picking up a stone, Zuko flicked it into the water; it skipped twice before sinking. "He would have found a way to get rid of me, one way or another. That meeting just provided him with a convenient excuse."

Lien nodded, and continued to stare across the stream in silence. Zuko looked at her with concern.

"Aang showed me his final battle with Ozai," she said at last.

Zuko sucked in a breath. "In which case, you already know what you're up against."

" _Why?_ " she burst out at last. "Why did he have to _do_ that? Why would anyone _want_ to destroy the world? Why did he have to burn you, and kill Aang, and—and—" Before she could come up with new words, however, her questions broke down into deep, choking sobs.

"Trust me," he said once she had burned herself out, "I've been trying to figure that out ever since I accepted that it wasn't _my_ fault."

For a few more minutes, they sat in silence. The only sounds were the babbling of the stream and Lien's breathing, slowly returning to a more normal cadence.

"Are you ready to go back?" Zuko asked at last, gently. Lien nodded.

Katara, who by this point had lunch ready, said nothing as they approached, though she did look relieved. Lien did not talk much as she ate, and the others did not press her.

As the afternoon drew toward evening, she was again left to herself. Being sure to stay within sight of the camp but otherwise letting her feet take her where they would, she finally found herself coming to the top of a low hill and facing out over the Earth Kingdom plains.

"Aang," she said, quietly.

Slowly, he materialized in front of her, insubstantial and ghostly blue. He did not speak.

For a moment, they simply looked at each other. Lien was the first to break the silence.

"How did you do it?" she asked at last. "How did you face the Phoenix King?"

"I trained. I learned the elements. I worked to master the Avatar State. Then, I met him on the day he'd planned to subjugate the Earth Kingdom, on the arrival of a comet that would enhance firebending a hundredfold." Aang sighed. "Understand, I didn't have a detailed plan. I just had to do my part, and trust my friends to do theirs, and hope that it was enough."

"It wasn't, though." She wouldn't have been here otherwise.

"Zuko and I argued a lot, in those last days before the comet," he confessed, turning to gaze out over the plains. "He insisted that I would need to kill Ozai. I couldn't bring myself to take a human life." He sighed. "To be honest, I still haven't figured out which one of us was right—the only thing I know is that I blew my chance, and you're here, and I'm sorry."

Lien didn't respond. There was hardly anything that she could say to that.

"Zuko told me that he and Katara aren't keeping any more secrets from me," she said instead, after a few moments of silence.

"Are you angry?"

"I don't know." Lien could not say anything more, and they left it at that.

"For what it's worth, I'm going to make you the same promise that they did. The time for secrets is over. Anything you want to know, I'll tell you if I can."

She bit her lip, and for a moment she looked away, but she had made a choice of her own. She turned back to Aang.

"Bending… were there any elements that you had trouble with?"

"Two elements, actually, for different reasons. I had trouble learning earth… and I had trouble learning fire.

"Earth gave me issues because it was my natural opposite. As an airbender, it's my nature to go with the flow and to work _with_ an element… but earth is stubborn, and has to be forced to move. I had to change my whole mindset before I could manage to move so much as a pebble, let alone a boulder.

"Fire… now that was a different thing entirely." He let out a breath. "At first I was really anxious to get started, so much so that the first time I found a firebender who was on our side, I badgered him into teaching me before I was ready because I didn't think I was going to get another chance. He eventually agreed, against his better judgment… but it turned out that he'd been right all along. I hadn't yet learned the discipline I needed in order to work with fire. The first time I tried to bend it, I lost control of it and burned Katara by accident. After that I was so afraid of losing control that for a while I tried to avoid learning firebending at all.

"Unfortunately, I think that you're suffering from both issues here. Your native element is water, and working with your natural opposite is going to require going against your nature no matter what. As for the other… well, I know you've had a lot of bad experiences with fire before."

Lien didn't respond to that; she couldn't exactly deny it. "So how did you learn them?" she asked instead.

"Earth was simple. It wasn't _easy_ , but it was a lot simpler than I wanted to admit. There was no way around it, as my earthbending teacher kept reminding me—I couldn't bend earth if I was thinking like an airbender. I just had to learn how to think like an earthbender—and you're going to have to learn to think like a firebender.

"As for fire… well, I had the wrong mindset in an entirely different way. The way I was thinking about the element was _wrong—_ fire isn't innately evil, any more than water or earth is innately evil. It can certainly be _used_ for destruction, but then again, so can any other element. There was a positive, constructive side to it too; I just had to stop and see it."

"Zuko helped you with that?" she guessed.

"Well, he needed a bit of help himself." Aang smiled. "But yeah."

* * *

"Aang told you that?"

Lien was too nervous to speak further: she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, she might throw up. So instead, she only nodded.

She'd been woken at sunrise by Zuko's hand on her shoulder. Yawning, she'd followed him out to the same flat rock they'd conversed on the day before, where he'd motioned her to sit across from him. Rather than starting right away, he'd begun by asking her whether she had any questions.

"It's true," he admitted. "In order to firebend, you have to have a drive: and I had to find a new one after realizing I couldn't keep drawing on anger and hate. Aang feared fire for its destructive power. But there's more than one side to every element, and we both needed to learn to see the other one."

He held out his hands, and a tiny flame blossomed to life in his cupped palms.

A jolt went through her as her eyes snapped open; Lien was not remotely tired anymore. Now, she looked at the flame with wide eyes, its tiny light seeming so much bigger and so much more threatening in the morning stillness.

"There's no need to be afraid," Zuko said gently. "Even if you can't control it, I won't let it hurt you."

The words did nothing to ease her trembling. Even so, she told herself that she _could_ do this. That she _had_ to do this.

With a single deep breath, she slid her hands into Zuko's.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd been expecting searing heat and a blistering pain on the palms of her hands. Instead, even after a few moments of sitting there with her eyes screwed shut the only thing Lien could feel was a gentle, steady warmth. When she drew her hands away from Zuko's the flame stayed with her, and she opened her eyes to look at it with wonder as it pulsed in her hands, steadily burning though it had nothing to consume.

"It's…" She shook her head. "I didn't… I wasn't expecting…"

Zuko nodded. "I know," he said gently, and reached out to cup his hands around hers so that they were now both holding the tiny flame, bright against the morning air. "Now, are you ready to learn the true nature of fire?"

* * *

They'd been practicing the exercise for several hours, the sun having risen far above the highest treetops, when a set of approaching footsteps alerted them to Katara's presence.

Zuko's relaxed posture instantly snapped to full alert; while bending training was not exactly _secret_ , he and Katara had an unspoken agreement never to interfere with each other's lessons, and it was rare for Katara to choose to sit and watch when she could be doing something useful herself. "Problem?"

"I'm not sure," she confessed, looking back toward the camp. "I saw a bit of a dark speck moving around in the sky, but it's too far away for me to tell what it is." For a moment, she hesitated. "If Lien could see your signal, there's a good chance that someone else did too."

"We'd better get going."

Immediately Zuko and Lien were on their feet and all three of them were moving, quickly but without running, back to the camp. Katara had already struck the tents and doused the fire; now Lien sunk the fire pit into the ground and coaxed new earth to come lie on top of it. It was slightly more complicated with the grass, but Lien by now was quite experienced in filling holes in the Earth in ways that made them look natural.

The three of them working together made short work of the camp. By the time they were finished, no casual observer would be able to tell that this place had been occupied mere minutes before.

"It's probably nothing," Katara reassured them as they crouched together inside of a hole that Lien had bent them in the ground. "Fire Nation airships fly back and forth across the Earth Kingdom all the time. They're not necessarily looking for us."

"Even so," Zuko continued with their routine of mutual reassurances, even as they watched the Fire Nation soldiers rappelling into their former campsite, "there's no reason for us to make their job easier."

The three of them waited in tense silence as the soldiers paced back and forth across the campsite, only able to watch the surface through a tiny peephole. It took a few minutes for one of them to get close enough to hear what they were saying.

"…can't believe they've got us chasing after random groups of travelers. As if the Avatar is just going to fall into our laps!"

"Maybe he will, and maybe he won't, but I doubt _this_ 'random group of travelers' would have been running from us if they didn't have _something_ to hide."

The first voice snorted. "Listen, there's a difference between smugglers trying to hide their goods and the Master of All Elements back from the dead. I'd bet half the Earth Kingdom has _some_ reason to run from us. Doesn't mean every one of them is harboring the Avatar."

"Sure, but it's still our hide on a stick if we miss the real Avatar because we weren't thorough enough about combing the small fry." A boot scraped the dirt above them, and Zuko tensed. "Speaking of which, you see any sign of 'em?"

"Nothing. It's like that camp was never here at all."

"Ha! More like Yusuke was sleeping at his post again, and dreamed the whole thing. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Should we get out of here?"

" _After_ we've finished checking the area. We need to be sure that there really _is_ no one here."

They hardly dared breathe as the boots continued to stomp around above them, sometimes barely audible, others seeming to be nearly on top of them. Zuko's limbs began to cramp up from holding one position for so long, and his back hurt from his half-bent-over posture. Finally, though, after what seemed like (and possibly _was_ ) several hours, he could no longer hear the footsteps no matter how hard he strained his ears.

Beside him, Lien let out a breath. "They're all off the ground."

"Let's stay down for a while longer, and give the airship time to get out of sight."

Finally, after what felt like several _more_ hours' worth of waiting and cramping, Katara clawed her way back up out of the earth. They waited as she paced above them, her footsteps growing fainter and then louder and then fainter again. A few minutes passed before Katara knocked on the ground above their heads.

"All clear."

At that, Lien thrust them both up out of the ground, where Katara pulled them to their feet one by one. Zuko wrinkled his nose; he needed a bath, and his clothes a good washing.

"So," Katara said grimly once they were all back on their feet. "The Fire Nation seeks the Avatar."

Lien was silent. Her gaze was on the sky, as if trying to see the ghost of a hovering airship that was no longer there.

"Well, we're just going to have to be more careful from here on out." Zuko hefted his pack with one last concerned glance at Lien, and they gathered their things without another word.

* * *

They seemed to have an unspoken policy that as soon as they saw any signs of a Fire Nation presence, whatever the reason, it was time to move on. They spent the rest of the day with no fire and no tent, trying to keep a low profile, and then moved out under cover of darkness.

"Did you have anywhere in particular in mind?" Katara asked as they shouldered their packs.

"Not really," Zuko confessed. "Away from the Si Wong, and away from the airship route. As long as we avoid the populated areas, we might as well go anywhere."

"Well, we're going to need a source of water," Katara pointed out. "Not to mention food…"

Lien allowed her mind to wander as the two of them consulted. She found herself daydreaming about the little cabin on the edge of the desert, now nothing but a pile of rubble, where she could always see the sunrise and dig her toes into soft sand. Then, to a time so far back she could barely remember it, to a cottage in the woods with a cheerful stream and a lantern out front that welcomed them all home.

This time, Zuko had said they had no destination.

Eventually, a course was chosen, the map was rolled up, and the three of them were plodding along parallel to the stream, Zuko in front. "Katara?" Lien asked timidly, after they had been walking for a few minutes. "Are we ever going to… live somewhere again?"

"I… don't know," Katara confessed, biting her lip. "We never know when the safe houses might be compromised, and things are so dangerous, especially now that the world knows the Avatar is back. Between you and Zuko, I wouldn't want to take the risk."

"What about you?"

"Me? I'm nothing. I'm just some waterbender." Katara shook her head. "It wouldn't exactly go _well_ for me if I got caught, but I'm not essential to restoring balance to the world the way the two of you are." She spoke matter-of-factly, not as if she were feeling sorry for herself, but simply stating a fact of life.

"The _two_ of us?" Lien asked.

Katara looked at her strangely. "Zuko did tell you he's the crown prince of the Fire Nation, right? Even if we do manage to get rid of Ozai, if we want to prevent even _more_ chaos, we're going to need someone to take his place."

"Oh." Of course. When Zuko had told her that Ozai was his father, she'd been too busy trying to grapple with the fact that he was so closely related to the enemy to think about any of the other implications of his parentage. Now that she did think about it, though, it made perfect sense—of _course_ Zuko would be the next Phoenix King after Ozai was gone. Then, she remembered _what_ exactly would have to happen to make Ozai "gone", and her stomach turned to ice.

"Lien, breathe." Katara put a hand on her shoulder. "We're not there yet. I know it's scary, but you do have time."

Lien nodded, taking in great gulps of air. As her breathing slowed, she desperately tried to think of something else— _anything_ else—to talk about.

"The last Avatar—Aang—how did you know him?"

Katara's eyes glazed over a bit, but even so, she smiled. "It was complete random chance that we met at all. My brother and I were out fishing when we stumbled across the iceberg where he'd been frozen for the past hundred years. My brother was saying some things that made me angry, and that made me start waterbending, which caused the iceberg to crack, and… well."

Of course, Aang had already told her the gist of that, but there was one piece of information that was completely new to her. Abruptly she remembered the boy, almost but not quite a man, who'd appeared beside Katara in Aang's memory. "You have a brother?"

"Had," Katara said shortly. "I… have no way of knowing whether he's still alive."

That was another blow, even if it wasn't one that she felt personally. She remembered Zuko, in the spirit cave, talking about the uncle who'd been a father to him and who'd died the day she was born; Aang, his whole people lost in a holocaust of flame… Some people would have wanted to say more, but Katara clearly didn't.

"What about Zuko?" she asked, changing the subject. "Why was he with you?"

"He wasn't." Katara breathed a sigh of relief. "At least, not at first. Believe it or not, while we were running around trying to save the world, Zuko was… well, he was…"

"—chasing after them, trying to capture the Avatar for the glory of the Fire Nation," Zuko finished wearily from ahead of them.

"You were trying to capture the Avatar? _Why?_ " Then: "Did it have something to do with Ozai being your father?"

"Yes," he said shortly. "It's a long story. I'll explain later."

"…okay," she conceded, her voice sounding small and meek even to her own ears, but she wasn't sure anymore whether she even still _wanted_ to ask him.

Zuko must have noticed her change in tone, for he dropped back to walk beside her with a sigh. Katara, without consultation, increased her pace so she was now in front. "It's… a very hard story," he admitted. "And it involves a lot of me being stupid. There was a time when I was able to joke about it, but now…" He shook his head. "I can't help but wonder how much of this is my fault. How much better our chances might have been the first time around if I'd had my priorities right from the start."

There wasn't much that she could say to that. Not too long ago Aang had said something similar, and she hadn't known how to respond then either.

"Are we about ready for a break?" Katara called back to them. "Because this looks like a pretty good resting spot."

They looked. They'd come to a bend in the riverbank, hidden to casual passerby by a small thicket of trees. The river's flow was calm here, sparkling silver with the reflection of moonlight.

"Looks good." Zuko nodded approval as he slipped off his pack. "I'll see what we have for food."

While he was doing that, Katara and Lien stopped to have a drink, and then to sit on the bank and dangle their toes in the water.

"Don't get too comfortable," Katara warned. "We're just here for a breather, then we're going to have to move on."

"I know." Lien sighed as she stared down at the Moon's reflection, wondering if there would ever be a time in her life when she _wasn't_ running from something.

"Hey," Katara said, nodding toward the river. "As long as we _are_ here, would you like to practice waterbending?"

Lien took a deep breath. She felt the tug of the moonlight, and the coolness of the water enveloping her tired feet. When she opened her mouth to answer, no words would come out, so instead she nodded, mutely.

Silently, they slipped into the water's embrace. The exercise they did was a simple one, passing a blob of water back and forth between them. Once they'd found a rhythm, each of them added a brief flourish, an overhead twirl or an increase in speed, which was then picked up by the other. The goal was to see how long they could keep it up until one of them lost control and got doused.

They both got doused a few times before Zuko called them back up to the bank with a reminder that they had a journey to be getting on with. Katara sighed but got out, waterbending herself dry before she started to pull on her clothes. Lien, however, lingered behind in the water.

There, standing in the moonlight in water up to her hips and soft mud oozing between her bare toes, she felt calm and centered in ways that she hadn't since before their trip to the desert rock, and it was that, more than anything, that made her realize how off-balance she'd been ever since learning the truth. It was so _calm_ here, so peaceful, so quiet, nothing but the fragrant night air and the moonlight silvering the slow-moving waters, and Lien did not want to drag herself back up onto the bank and back to balance and Avatars and searing heat and the choking smoke of flame. Raising a hand to her face, she realized that the wetness there was not just from being splashed.

"Come on up, Lien," Katara called gently. "This isn't the last time." She held out her hand.

Lien had to close her eyes as she let Katara grasp her fingers and pull her up onto the bank. Her body felt heavier back on dry land, the water now dirtying rather than cleaning her as it ran down her legs to make more mud at her feet.

 _This isn't the last time._ Sighing, Lien bent away water and mud alike before getting dressed and returning to the rest spot to accept Zuko's offering of dried fish and rice cakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still quarantined. Still no definitive signs of illness from anyone in the household, and still hoping it stays that way.
> 
> This chapter was originally two chapters (plus one scene from an aborted chapter) that got mushed together because they were pretty similar thematically, and a little bit shorter than I liked even before I cut a bunch of stuff that came out pretty redundant given the content of the final chapters (this is why I write in drafts). Story of the second draft this book, it seems.
> 
> So far I've mostly been covering the emotional stuff, but next chapter is where we finally get started on the external plot. *rubs hands together with an evil cackle*


	6. Separation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "Sky Blue" by Peter Gabriel

"Zuko, I hate to be the one to point this out, but… we're running low on food."

Zuko paused in his task of making a fire pit. "I don't suppose you'd be telling me this if you thought we could make up for it with what we can find here."

"Of course not." Katara shook her head. "There is the river, but we should have more than just fish, and there aren't a lot of good vegetables or greens around here. I checked."

"Okay." He nodded. "It's not an emergency yet, but let's make sure it doesn't become one."

A few minutes later, they had the map spread out on a wide rock and were peering down at it intensely, their heads so close together that they almost knocked skulls. Lien, who'd been practicing her earthbending while they settled in, saw what they were doing and came over to join them, leaning over the other side of the rock so she was looking at the map upside-down.

"Let's see… if this is the river we've been following, this looks like the bend we passed last night. So we should be about… here." Zuko tapped the map.

They all stared at the area of blank space that surrounded them. Of course, they'd been deliberately _trying_ to keep out of the way of civilization, but right now it looked as if they'd done their job a bit _too_ well.

"So, the nearest town is…"

"…at least a full day's walk south and east."

They looked at each other. When they'd been traveling the world by flying bison, such a distance would have been laughable—but those days were long over.

"Well, I guess I can manage a bit of a hike," Katara said lightly, pushing herself to her feet. "And if it's that far away, there's less of a chance of me being traced back to you if something goes wrong."

Zuko nodded, though he looked unhappy. Nobody said what they were both thinking: the village being far away also meant that if something _did_ happen to her, by the time he realized anything was wrong, it was all too likely that she would be beyond his help.

"You really don't think we can hold out on what we have here? Or maybe all of us move closer to the town, so at least we'll be nearby if something happens?"

"No, we couldn't," Katara said firmly, crossing her arms. "And it's ridiculous for all three of us to risk ourselves on a one-person job. I'll be fine," she continued, letting her necklace slip into her hand. "I know what I'm doing."

At last, Zuko reached out to take it. "Be safe."

She nodded. "I will."

They agreed to give her until sunset of the fourth day to get back to the campsite. While they'd only estimated two days' journey for a round trip, they had to allow for rest stops, and shopping would take time. After that was decided, there was no reason to wait around.

She did debate with herself, briefly, about whether it would be better to change into her Fire Nation clothes. Trying to pass herself off as a Fire Nation citizen might offer her more protection, and reduce the chances of her being molested by Fire Nation troops. In the end, however, the fact remained that she would be going into an Earth Kingdom town, and the people she would be dealing with directly would mostly be Earth Kingdom folk. They needed information as much as they needed food, and people would be far more likely to talk to her if she wasn't parading around in the enemy's colors. In the end, she left on the green dress she was already wearing.

That decided, Katara filled her waterskin (no one would question why a traveler traversing large swathes of wilderness was carrying a waterskin), donned her weapon (with which she'd been practicing regularly), counted the coins in her pouch, hefted one of the empty packs, and carefully picked limited supplies out of their swiftly dwindling stock.

"I want you to work hard on your firebending while I'm gone," she told Lien, who'd come over to watch her silently as she packed. "Do whatever Zuko tells you."

"You… are coming back, aren't you?"

"If I have anything at all to say about it, yes." Katara sighed, and turned to the child Avatar. "I won't lie to you: there is a risk. There's always a risk. But it's not as bad as the risks we'll end up facing if we don't get more to eat."

Lien only nodded, looking down at the ground. Katara could guess what she was thinking: what if this was the last time they ever spoke to each other?

Spontaneously, Katara stepped forward and hugged her. "Try not to worry unless you know you have something to worry about," she advised after they pulled apart, keeping her hands resting lightly on Lien's shoulders. "I've been doing this for years. I know how to handle it even if things do get rough."

Lien was still looking at the ground but she nodded again, and Katara knew that that was the best she was going to get. Besides, the longer she waited, the harder it would be.

"I'll see you in a few days," she said, and then, without another word, she hefted the pack, turned around, and started walking.

* * *

Traveling on her own was wearying, and incredibly lonely.

Katara was a social person. She'd grown up in a packed living space with her closest family members, in an environment where only the best (or most foolhardy) hunters went out alone. Survival depended on people's ability to work together, and the choices were either life with the tribe or death without it.

Even so, loneliness was no excuse for lying down on the ice to die. She walked.

As the sun rose higher and higher into the sky, it illuminated the grass, the green forests, the moss-covered rocks, and the sparkling water. All the landscape was gentle greens and mild browns and tranquil blue sky in contrast with the harsh whites and cold blues of the poles or the neverending burnt dry beiges and tans of the desert, and Katara had to admit: this part of the Earth Kingdom was lovely. Even so, though, it was so, so desolate, and it was hard to imagine a nation so big that it had this much livable land and a population that had not even begun to fill it.

When the sun had reached its peak in the sky, Katara sat down to take a rest and have a bite to eat. Her legs were weary and her feet sore, but those were minor aches, nothing that couldn't be fixed by a stretch and a rest.

She'd been following the river, and now removed her boots and hitched up her skirts to stand directly in the water. With not a single other person in sight she probably need not have gone to the trouble, but she was getting closer to civilization, and if someone _did_ happen to be watching with her unawares, it was better they think she was good enough to catch a fish with her bare hands than that they notice her furtive waterbending.

Besides, the embrace of cool water around her feet and ankles was a sensation that she had dearly missed. She did not want to openly waterbend while she was out here alone, but if Katara could get her hands wet, so much the better.

Her activities soon yielded a good sized fish, which she then proceeded to spit and cook over the small fire she'd built. There wasn't much else around here that was good for a human to eat, so she supplemented her lunch by munching a bit of dried fruit from her pack, but she made sure to munch it sparingly. Their supplies were lower than she'd let on, and she hadn't taken enough to sustain herself if the wilderness failed to provide.

As soon as she was finished eating, Katara doused the fire, buried the bones, and hefted her pack. She did not need to hurry, but neither should she dawdle.

The second part of the journey was, as always, harder. Her feet and her muscles complained more now that both had had a chance to rest, and her full stomach made her want to sit down and relax for a few hours. Remembering the endless trek across the desert with barely any food or water, she could not help but smile at these small complaints of her body.

The shadows had lengthened considerably by the time she hit a road. According to her map, it was only about an hour's walk from here to the town she was seeking. Folding the map, she pocketed it and set her feet on the dusty way back to civilization.

When the town at last came into sight, her first impression was that it looked like an unhappy place. Even though this was not a big city, it was surrounded by a defensive wall, and even though it was deep within the Earth Kingdom, there were red banners flown from the roofs and guards in Fire Nation armor stationed outside the gate. Feeling absurdly glad that Zuko and Lien were not with her, Katara steeled herself and approached.

"State your business." The guards seemed bored, but alert; she would not be able to count on them being slipshod.

"I need to buy food." Best to tell as much of the truth as was safe; fewer lies to keep track of later. "My supplies are running low."

"Do you have the money to pay for all of that? We won't have beggars in this town."

"O-of course I have money!" Katara did not have to fake her outrage: the thought that the Fire Nation military was not only dictating who could and could not enter an Earth Kingdom town, but were willing to let people starve rather than allowing them in to beg a few scraps, was enough to make her blood boil.

The guards only nodded, giving her a quick once-over with their eyes. "That's a nasty-looking weapon, Missy," the one on the right said, her nod indicating the chain that was wrapped around Katara's shoulder. "What business does a little girl like you have carrying something so dangerous?"

Katara's fingers tightened around the chain. "The road can be a dangerous place for a lone traveler. I have to be able to defend myself." Again, not a lie: she just neglected to specify from _what_.

The guards only nodded; apparently she had said nothing that they did not hear several dozen times every day. "Around here, _we're_ the ones who do the defending. All weapons must be checked at the gate."

Katara bit her lip. True, she didn't exactly _need_ a weapon to fight, but if she sacrificed it, she would lose one more means of defending herself without blowing her cover.

"Unless, of course, you would rather try your luck at the _next_ town." The guard on the left was crossing her arms with a smug smile. "Though last I heard, _they_ won't bother to return your weapons when you leave."

Shaking with fury, Katara slipped the chain off of her shoulder and let it fall into the dust of the road, before walking to the gate without a word. Still chuckling, the guards uncrossed their spears to let her pass.

It was too late for the market; the last reddish light of the sunset covered the streets with lengthening shadows, and the last of the merchants was busily packing up his stall to go home. After making a few inquiries, Katara found that this town did indeed have an inn, and paid for a room for two nights. One day for the journey, one day for shopping, and one day for the return trip; with the extra day she and Zuko had agreed on to allow for the unexpected, she ought to get back to their camp with plenty of time to spare.

After a quick wash and re-braiding her hair, she headed out to the common area to get herself some dinner. Time to investigate the news around town.

The inn, thankfully, was serving meals. Katara paid for her food, chose a table in an unobtrusive corner, and settled in to wait.

Back when they'd first been on the run and freeing slaves, this was a job that had always fallen to Katara. She stood out significantly less in a crowd, and she knew how to blend in and be unobtrusive; one could pick up all sorts of useful gossip just by sitting quietly and listening.

Satisfied that she was unobserved, Katara sat back and honed in one by one on the conversations around her.

"…even confiscating weapons now! Every year they get worse, and if I didn't have a daughter to feed…"

"…price of grain going up, I don't know if I'll be able to afford…"

"…hear the roast duck is good, would you like to try…"

"…voice down! If any Fire Nation spies hear you, you could be arrested and…"

"…Phoenix King is…"

At the mention of Ozai, Katara's ears immediately perked up. Unfortunately, the three men whose conversation she'd picked up were heading for the opposite side of the room, and the only way to stay within hearing range was to get up and move closer to them, which would draw attention.

Her food arrived. Well, it was no matter, she decided, as she picked up her chopsticks to eat and continued to keep an ear on the ambient chatter. She had not gotten this far by being impatient. If there really was important news about Ozai going around, she would hear it again before she left town. In the meantime, she should not discount any of the _other_ information she could glean from mealtime gossip.

By the time she had finished her dinner, Katara learned that the Fire Nation had tightened its control over its territories in the Earth Kingdom, that bad weather in this region had hurt this year's harvest, and that the roast duck was indeed excellent. She had, however, heard nothing more about Ozai.

* * *

The next day, it was time for the market.

It was not a large town, and the market was proportionately small, but it looked to have enough of the basics to keep everyone fed. Katara frowned as she haggled with one of the merchants over the price of a sack of rice, which had gone up considerably since the last time she'd been shopping.

"Look, lady," the exasperated merchant shot back when Katara said as much, "we had a bad harvest and I've got a family to feed too. Take it or leave it."

Shaking her head, Katara paid up and hefted her purchase. She could only hope that the _rest_ of the supplies she needed would not be so dear, otherwise the money might run out before the space in her pack did.

As Katara continued to move through the market, buying medicines, spices, and vegetables that would keep (most of them had indeed gone up in price, though thankfully none as much as rice), she made sure to keep her ears open for more news about the Fire Nation. The middle of the market, however, was not the best place to do this: it was saturated with people doing the exact same thing that she was doing, and what threads she did manage to pick up out of the ambient noise consisted almost entirely of haggling and merchants calling out their wares.

By the time she'd stocked up on as much food as she could practically carry, bought a pastry and some meat skewers from a street vendor, and sat eating her lunch beneath a tree, Katara knew she had a decision to make. Whatever it was she'd heard about Ozai last night in the inn, her gut was telling her it was something important. She had yet to hear any more of it, however, and there was a good chance she wouldn't before it was time to leave. In which case, she would have to make a choice: return to camp tomorrow as planned and risk missing critical news, or stay an extra day and make Zuko worry.

 _There's no need to cross that stream before I come to it_ , she decided as she pushed herself to her feet, already adding up the sewing supplies and cloth that she could afford with what she had left in her purse. _There's still a chance I might hear something before the day is done._

She didn't hear anything more in the market, and by the time the merchants started packing up she was so preoccupied with pushing her way through the crowd with her heavy bag that she had no focus left to spare for gossip. Then it was up to her room for some packing and a much-needed wash; now she was on her way to dinner, and had just made up her mind to ask the innkeeper to extend her stay another night, when she heard Ozai's name again from a couple a little in front of her.

Well, she thought, waiting until they sat down and sliding into a seat at the table next to theirs, she wasn't going to get a better opportunity than this.

* * *

Several hours later, her head was spinning.

Granted, what she'd heard wasn't the end of the world, and she couldn't say it was completely unexpected. Even so, though, it was… not good.

 _Well, however good or bad it is, Zuko's not going to want to hear it, and I'm just as certain I don't want to_ tell _it._ Katara sighed. Right when it felt like they were finally getting on track, things always had to go and get _complicated_ again.

The question that most urgently needed answering was exactly _how_ bad it was, and in order to figure that out, she was going to need more information… the sort of information you couldn't get by listening to gossip at an inn. After lying awake for several hours that night and mulling it over, Katara came to a decision.

The next morning, she handed over the last of the coins in her purse and asked the innkeeper to extend her stay for one more night. Yes, Zuko would worry, but he already knew to expect the unexpected, and this was too important to put off. That taken care of, she took once more to the streets.

It didn't take her long to locate the building that she had made note of the day before: a small china shop with an unobtrusive lotus design sewn into the corner of one of its curtains. The lotus was still visible, and Katara sighed with relief: today, at least, it seemed to be safe.

There were a couple of customers inside when she opened the door: a man perusing vases, who Katara quickly learned was buying his wife a birthday present, and a woman in Fire Nation red who turned a judgmental gaze on one shelf after another and seemed impossible to please. While she was waiting for them to be finished, Katara pretended to browse.

After a few minutes, the man left carrying a beautiful piece of blue and white and looking very pleased with himself, while the haggled-looking merchant, a middle-aged woman, continued desperately trying to explain to the other customer that she had a child to feed and that she needed to charge at least enough to make up for the price of the materials. As this went on and the customer showed no sign of either conceding or leaving, instead continuing to argue that she was doing the merchant a favor by even considering spending her money on subpar Earth Kingdom work and that she deserved a lower price, Katara leaned against the counter as she waited for them. As if bored, she started to tap her fingers against the wood: four times, before pausing and tapping twice more, and then twice more again.

The merchant immediately stiffened. Though she was not foolish enough to show a more overt reaction, while the customer was busy ridiculing the merchandise Katara saw the merchant's eyes drift over to the corner to look at her, really _look_ at her. It was almost possible to feel her flimsy Earth Kingdom disguise fall away, revealing the true Water Tribe woman underneath, leaving her feeling both gratified and naked.

Only a few minutes after that, the merchant sold the difficult customer a tea set for less than half of what it was worth. The second the customer's foot was over the threshold, the merchant barred the door and drew the curtains. "I gladly offer shelter to whoever requires it."

"I thank you for your hospitality," Katara replied formally. "But what I seek is information."

The merchant's eyes widened, and Katara sensed that she was about to clam up, so she hastily uncorked her waterskin and drew out a small stream, letting it swirl around her fingers before putting it back. "Don't worry," she reassured. "I'm a friend, not a spy."

The woman breathed a sigh of relief. "I hope you can forgive my caution. The Fire Nation has been breathing down my neck as is."

"Don't worry, I understand completely. Do you know anything about—"

"Not here." The merchant's eyes flicked to the windows and the door, before she gestured Katara to follow her into the back room. "Too much chance of being overheard." Already, she was pulling out a ring of keys.

Katara was practically dancing with impatience at this point, but she bit her tongue. She could hardly blame the locals for being cautious. So, when the merchant gestured her through the door, she entered the back room without further protest.

There were no lamps lit, and no windows to provide any natural light. Assuming that the merchant would be right behind her with a lamp, she waited for a beat… and then nearly jumped out of her skin when the door was closed and bolted behind her.

She didn't even have time to uncork her waterskin before the sack came down over her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news! The two weeks are up, and no one's gotten sick, so it looks like the precautions we were taking protected us after all.
> 
> More good news: the second draft is now 100% complete! So, short of me dying, or being incapacitated in ways I really don't want to think about, or losing internet access for a truly obscene amount of time, or my computer and my Dropbox both crashing at once, this book at least is _guaranteed_ to be completed, and to finish on schedule.


	7. Guilt

It was nearly midnight at the end of the third day, and Katara had yet to return.

The unexpected _happened_. Zuko _knew_ that. He could think of any number of reasons that Katara might have opted to stay in town an extra day, or been held up on the road, that didn't involve her having been captured or harmed.

He also knew what Katara would say, if she could see how worried he was. " _Don't do anything reckless._ " She would never forgive him if he blew everything to rush in and "rescue" her from what turned out to be a sprained ankle or a ripped bag. She was expendable, she would say; he and Lien weren't. He had to think of the big picture, and keep his mind on the future.

Absolutely none of that was enough to assuage his worry.

What if something actually _had_ happened? What if it was already too late? Could he really make the decision to sacrifice someone he cared about for the sake of a larger objective?

From his perch on the edge of the cliff that overhung their campsite, Zuko could see for miles: the landscape was calm and tranquil, bathed in silvery moonlight. It looked so peaceful: an illusion, as if in deliberate contrast to the state of the world and his own inner turmoil.

One way or another, he knew that if Katara didn't come back by sunset tomorrow, he was going to have to make a decision: sacrifice Katara, or risk Lien to get her back.

"I wish you were here right now, Uncle," he said out loud, his fingers curling around the stone of Katara's necklace. "Because I could really use your advice right now."

Of course, there was no answer.

Zuko was not the only one lying awake that night.

Under the cliff below him, Lien was tossing and turning in her bedroll. Katara had said that her trip would take only three days. She'd also said there was a possibility she might be a day late, and that Lien shouldn't worry unless she was sure she had something to worry about, but when the sun had begun to sink below the horizon with still no sign of her return, Lien had felt a pit of cold dread building up in her stomach that she just couldn't shake.

What if Katara was in some kind of trouble?

"Something on your mind?"

Lien almost jumped out of her skin, but then relaxed when she recognized the source of the voice. "Aang! Katara is—well, you already know, don't you?"

Aang nodded, solemnly, and sank down to the ground beside her. "I'm a part of you. Of course I know."

"What are we going to _do?_ " Lien buried her face in her hands. "Katara's always telling us not to risk ourselves for her, but what if…?"

"You might not _have_ to do anything," Aang pointed out. "Maybe there's a perfectly reasonable explanation why she's late, and she'll come walking over that hill right at sunset tomorrow, and then you'll all have a good laugh about how worried you were—"

"But what if she _doesn't?_ " Aang looked away at that, and Lien immediately knew that his cheerful optimism was a ruse, and that under his hopeful exterior he was just as worried as she was.

* * *

The next day, both Zuko and Lien were constantly jumpy and on edge.

Zuko had always known that Lien would have to ease into firebending, but today, she was completely unable to focus. When he tried to walk her through their morning meditation, barely had she closed her eyes than she started to fidget; the flame she was holding seemed equally restless, vacillating between flaring higher than their heads and puffing out into a wisp of smoke, and several times Zuko had to take it under his own control to prevent any accidents. Finally, he decided it would be better to cut the day's training short before one of them got burned.

Of course, having nothing useful to do only served to put them _more_ on edge, and Zuko took to pacing the edges of the campsite with his eyes glued to the horizon while Lien redid chores that had already been completed, unfolding clothes and then folding them again or rearranging the earth to cover every little footprint.

Finally, Zuko decided to practice some firebending forms to burn off some of his nervous energy. After he was finished, breathing hard and covered in sweat, having worked off the worst of the jitters but feeling no less nervous than before, he returned to their campsite to find Lien unconscious with her eyes glowing.

He nearly cursed—she should have _known_ better than to leave her body vulnerable without someone there to guard her!—but then sighed and sank to the ground across from her. He'd been close by, and they were isolated enough that the risk to her was not particularly high… _this_ time.

A few minutes later, the glow faded from her eyes, and Lien blinked up at him, shaking her head. "She's not in the Spirit World," she said before Zuko could even open his mouth.

"What? Also, be more careful next time! What if someone had found you like that? They could have walked off with your body!"

"I couldn't find Katara in the Spirit World," she repeated, ignoring him. "I thought that maybe…"

"That's probably a good thing." The only reason Katara would be in the Spirit World was if she'd died within the last few minutes, or if she desperately needed to contact them. "If she doesn't need help, she's not going to ask for it."

" _Would_ she ask for help even if she did need it, though?"

Zuko grimaced; Lien was right. Even if Katara _were_ in some sort of trouble, she'd do whatever she could to keep them from finding out until it was too late—to keep them from coming after her, and risking themselves.

"Well, keep trying if you want to, but try not to worry too much if you can't find her. Remember, it could mean any number of things." Lien nodded, biting her lip. "And let me know beforehand!" he remembered to add.

Lien didn't immediately try again. Instead, she decided to go stand in the stream, slashing a water whip repeatedly out at nothing. Zuko, having exhausted all of his firebending forms, unsheathed his swords for a few rounds of weapons practice instead. By the time the Sun had reached its peak, he didn't think he could do any more physical training if his life depended on it.

The constant worry meant that neither one of them had much of an appetite, but they still needed to eat. Lien handled the fishing while Zuko started a fire. When she came back with three cat-eelfish instead of two, he said nothing. She had done the same thing the night before.

As they waited for their lunch to cook, they both watched the horizon. The stench of charred fish had begun to fill the air before Zuko regretfully reached forward and plucked one of the spits out of the fire.

By the time they had finished eating, the spare fish had grown cold, and there was still no sign of Katara.

Both of them eyed the remaining fish. If they let it sit for much longer, it was going to go bad, but it seemed wrong to eat it and even worse to throw it away.

"Katara wouldn't want us to waste food," Zuko said at last, easing the fish from its spit and pulling out his knife to divide it between them. "We can always get another one if she comes back."

Lien nodded, miserably. "It's overcooked anyway."

Again, they waited. Again, Lien devoted far more time than was actually necessary to cleaning up the fire pit and the remains of their meal. Zuko, meanwhile, ventured back up to the cliff top, Katara's necklace in hand and a heavy weight on his mind.

There was no sign of Katara on the horizon, but then again, some part of him had already known that there wouldn't be. He also knew that he had a decision to make… and that, somewhere in his heart, he had already made it.

There was one major complication: Lien. Strategy or no, protecting her life was paramount: even above Katara's. As a matter of fact, he was pretty sure Katara would kill him if she knew what he was considering.

He could, of course, leave her behind, but after some of the stunts she'd pulled since they'd left the desert, he had a few well-placed doubts about whether he could trust her to _stay_ behind. There were also plenty enough dangers even in such a remote area of the wilderness, ranging from wild animals to accidental poisonings to Fire Nation airships in the skies, perils he wouldn't be able to protect her from if they separated. Like it or not, if Lien absolutely _must_ be put in danger, he'd rather she face the danger with him than without him.

Of course, doing nothing was also an option… but Lien's physical safety was not the only thing that was important to her wellbeing. When he really came down to it, Zuko did not think he could look her in the face and tell her that their only option was to leave Katara to her fate.

When Zuko returned to the lower ground of the campsite, his mind made up, he was irked to see that Lien had once again decided to search the Spirit World without telling him first—which only strengthened his own resolve not to leave her by herself. She blinked awake just as he came to stand in front of her.

"Nothing," she said, despondently.

Zuko nodded, and then gestured to their practice spot by the edge of the stream. "Come with me."

Lien looked at the Sun, which was sinking ever lower toward the horizon, and then back to him. Though she didn't say anything out loud, it was clear what she was thinking: _Now?_

Zuko nodded: yes, now. "This is important."

So, Lien got up and followed him to the edge of the water. For a moment, they only stood looking at each other, each wondering what the other was going to do next.

"I know we agreed to take it slow," Zuko said at last, watching her carefully to gauge her reaction. "But things have changed, and I can't wait any longer to teach you this.

"You won't actually have to handle any fire yet," he continued, seeing the panic on her face, "and it's far too dangerous to practice for real—but it's more important than _anything_ that you at least know _how_. If I teach you nothing else about firebending, I need you to learn this."

Despite the dread in Lien's expression, she was finally beginning to show a spark of interest. "What is it?"

"There are only a handful of firebenders in the world who are capable of creating lightning—I can't do it, Xi Wang can't do it, and Aang couldn't do it either. Of the three I know of who can, one is dead, another can't bend anymore, and the third… the third is Phoenix King Ozai."

Lien's eyes widened, but Zuko pressed on mercilessly. "There's no firebending technique in existence that can block lightning. It can't be put out with water, and it'll go straight through most earth barriers… but there is a way for a skilled enough firebender to _redirect_ it.

"If there are few firebenders who can create lightning, there are even fewer who know how to do this," Zuko continued. "I learned it from my uncle, who invented it… based on _waterbending_."

Finally, the last of her fear gave way to fascination. "How do I do it?"

Night had nearly fallen by the time they wrapped up the lesson. "Whatever happens, you _must_ not forget the stomach detour," he emphasized once again. "If you slip up, and allow the lightning to pass through your heart, it'll all be over. I nearly found that out the hard way." For a moment, he paused, considering, but then began to undo his belt: better to scare her now than risk carelessness later. "The first time I tried to redirect lightning," he said as he let his shirt fall open, "I was successful. This," he pressed a hand to the angry starburst scar at the center of his torso, "is from the second. If Katara hadn't been there to heal me, I would have died."

Lien stared solemnly for a moment, before accepting the information with a nod. Then, as he was pulling his shirt closed and re-tying his belt, she asked the question that Zuko had been waiting to answer. "Why did you need to teach me this now?"

Before he responded, Zuko turned to look back out at the horizon. Only the tiniest sliver of the Sun's disk remained visible, leaving only a few last reddening rays that stretched long shadows across the ground. The land was empty of any signs of further human presence.

"I'm telling you because tomorrow, we're going to go into town and find out what happened."

* * *

Lien didn't need Zuko's hand on her shoulder to wake her: she hadn't been able to sleep all night.

"Come on. We're going after Katara."

She didn't ask questions, but gratefully wriggled out of her bedroll and packed her few meager belongings. Within minutes, they were on the road.

"What are we going to do?" she asked as they walked. Zuko was wearing a hood, which was pulled down low over his face, but it would do little to hide his identity from anyone who thought to look.

"It's too risky for me to be seen in town. You're going to have to go in by yourself."

Zuko had walked a few paces ahead of her before he realized that she'd stopped. He turned, to find Lien standing frozen in the middle of the road.

Her breath was coming in shallow and rapid, and her hands were starting to shake. "What do you mean, by myself? Zuko, I can't go into town alone!"

No sooner had she spoken than Zuko closed the distance between them and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Lien, you can. You can, and if you want to come with me, you will." He took a deep breath. "You knew that this was going to be dangerous. If you want to stop and pitch camp while I go in alone, I'll understand. You can stay out of sight, and I'll come back and get you as soon as—"

Lien, however, was shaking her head. She couldn't just camp out and do nothing when Katara might be in trouble!

"Okay," Zuko continued, his voice still calm and level. "I know it's scary, but this part isn't going to be as hard as you think it is. Now, here's what I want you to do…"

Hours and hours later, shortly after sunset, Lien was walking alone toward the gates of the town that Katara hadn't come back from.

Zuko had made her dress in red, and helped her pull her hair up into a topknot. To light her way, she held in the palm of her hand the same tiny flame that Zuko had passed her.

This was important, he'd said. " _If the Fire Nation captured Katara, that probably means they're on the lookout for waterbenders. It might not be enough just to_ look _like you're from the Fire Nation—you're going to need to show them something that proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you can't possibly be a waterbender._ "

"Good evening, Miss," one of the guards greeted her once she was within hailing distance. "What brings you to the town of Hexie?"

Lien took a deep breath. She and Zuko had rehearsed this numerous times while on the road. "I… I need to buy some supplies," she squeaked out. "And a-a place to sleep tonight. At the inn. Where is the inn?"

The guards exchanged a worried glance, before the woman leaned in closer with an expression of concern. "Are you okay? You seem a bit young to be traveling all by yourself. Where are your parents?"

" _Remember, I'm going to be shadowing you the whole time. You won't be able to see me, but I'll be watching you, and if you get in any kind of trouble, I'll be right there to help._ "

"Dead," Lien answered in a near-whisper, the flame in her hand flickering with her agitation. "My parents are dead."

The guard nodded, though she still looked worried. "Well, the only inn in this town is right up the main road here. Keep going the way you're going, and you'll come to it in a few minutes; you can't miss it." Lien nodded with relief, and stepped forward when they uncrossed their spears. "Oh, and Miss?" She stiffened and froze in the middle of the road, wondering if Zuko was still with her as he'd promised, if something hadn't happened to _him_ too, if he'd really be able to come to her aid if the guards didn't buy her story… "If there's anything you need, anything at all, you can come back here at any time, okay? If I'm not here, be sure to ask for Aneko."

Lien managed a stiff nod, though she didn't think she drew another breath until she was well out of sight of the gates.

Getting a room at the inn was, if anything, even more harrowing. The innkeeper, it seemed, went to bed early, and she did _not_ appreciate being woken up by a new guest who "couldn't be bothered to come into town at a _reasonable_ hour." What's more, she didn't accept the money Lien gave her until she'd bitten every single one of the coins to make sure they were good, and muttered something about "Fire Nation parasites" as she shoved a key across the table with so much force it ended up flying right past her and onto the floor, and Lien had to bend to pick it up.

By the time she finally managed to find the room that had been assigned her (the innkeeper had only shoved her into the hallway before going back to bed), her hands were shaking so hard she could barely turn the key in the lock. As soon as the door was shut behind her, she sank to the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees. How was she ever going to help save Katara, if she could barely even manage to rent a room?

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, trying to breathe evenly even as she shuddered in the dark, when she heard a noise from the opposite side of the room, where the window was. Immediately her whole body went stiff at the sight of the dark shadow moving against the night sky, and she pressed her back up against the door, keenly aware that it was not going to open unless she got up and pulled it. She didn't think she could move if her life depended on it (and it _might_ actually depend on it this time); she wasn't even sure she was _breathing…_

"Lien?" a familiar voice called, and she sagged with relief. "Are you in here?"

"Z-Zuko?" Pushing herself up from the floor, she groped her way blindly toward his voice, tripping and stubbing her toes on several unseen objects along the way. Despite her relief, though, she did not fully believe that the silhouette at the window was actually him until she reached out and touched him.

There was something about that contact, about reaching out and feeling the warm solid _realness_ of him, that frayed right through the last of her shattered nerves. All at once, she was falling against him, burying her face in his chest as she began to cry uncontrollably.

"Hey. Hey. It's okay. You're okay." One of his arms wrapped around her shoulders, and he was gently patting her back. "You made it, didn't you?"

Lien sniffled, and nodded against his chest.

Still with one arm wrapped around her, Zuko reached behind him and pulled down the shade. Then, he flicked his fingers.

Every lamp and candle in the room flared immediately to life, and Lien squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden influx of light. Zuko was wearing all black, his swords strapped to his back and a black cloth pulled up over the lower half of his face. He pulled this down before speaking again.

"I've been poking around the guardhouse and the storage room of the inn." He gestured toward the floor. "This is what I found."

Lien's stomach twisted as she took a look at the objects, which she hadn't noticed in her moment of panic and relief: Katara's weapon, and the traveling bag she'd left with, which was still partially filled with food.

"She was taken. The Fire Nation has her." It was the only thing that she could think to say.

"Yes, and we need to find out where."

Lien's heart sank. They had the whole Earth Kingdom to search, and she could be _anywhere_.

"I'm going to start with the nearest Fire Nation military base. While I'm doing that, you can either stay in town and try to find more information, or you can leave and camp out until I return."

All at once, it felt as if every vein in her body was flooded with ice. "You mean…"

Zuko sighed, and moved to sit down on the end of the bed. "Lien, I can't take you with me. This is going to be dangerous. I'm going to need to do a lot of sneaking, and a lot of climbing. You're not trained in stealth, and we _absolutely cannot_ risk you. Either I need to rescue Katara by myself, or we're not going to be able to rescue her at all."

Arms wrapped around herself, Lien sank down onto the bed next to him. So soon after the last one, she was faced with yet another impossible choice.

"I'll tell you what," Zuko said at last. "You stay here the rest of the night. Try to get some sleep. I'll scout out whatever I can, and you can make a decision in the morning. Deal?"

Relieved, Lien nodded. By the time she had finished climbing under the covers, Zuko had disappeared back out the window and into the night.

* * *

Lien had barely slept at all the previous night. Her eyes were dry and scratchy, her thoughts fuzzy and hard to focus. She _should_ have drifted off the second her head hit the pillow.

Instead, she found herself tossing and turning. The weather in this place was so different from the desert: too cool during the day, too hot at night, and too humid all the time, so that she felt constantly sticky. The air in the room was too stuffy after three years in a desert cabin and then several more weeks sleeping under the stars. The bed was too soft. The night sounds of the city were completely different from the ones she was used to. Perhaps worst of all, it was inexplicably disturbing to open her eyes and see a window in the wrong place, to find herself lying on a mattress that did not smell like her bedroll, to be aware that she was sleeping all alone in a place she didn't know. Every creak, squeak, and knock that she couldn't identify sounded to her half-asleep mind like some stranger sneaking into the room.

Right when the first stars were beginning to disappear from the sky, she finally managed to drift off… only to be startled awake when Zuko climbed back in through the window.

Lien sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. Zuko looked as tired as she felt… and Katara wasn't with him.

"Well, even if they were keeping her there before, she isn't there anymore."

Lien's shoulders slumped. They were right back where they started, then, and Katara could be _anywhere_.

"If we're going to find Katara," Zuko continued, "we're going to need to get more information, and how we're going to do that depends on you. Have you decided what you're going to do?"

"I'll stay."

The words were out of her mouth before she had even had time to think about it. Once she had said them, however, Lien knew that she could not change her mind. Katara's life was at stake. She had to see this through.

Zuko nodded. "Okay. Here's what I want you to do, then: go outside and spend some time walking around the town. Buy yourself something to eat. Look around the shops, the market, wherever there are people. Don't take any unnecessary risks, and don't try to ask anyone any questions, not yet. Just listen. If anything unusual has happened recently, there should be people talking about it. Come back here at sunset and tell me what you've heard, and we'll figure out what to do from there."

He was yawning even as he spoke, and Lien didn't need to ask to know that he intended to sleep throughout the day, and resume his search for Katara once night fell. While Zuko lay down on the floor beside the bed, she got dressed and brushed her hair in preparation to go out and do as he has said.

With her hand on the doorknob, though, she hesitated. She looked down at the red cloth of her dress, and reached up a hand to feel the unfamiliar style of her hair.

Guiltily, she tiptoed around Zuko's sleeping body and rummaged through her traveling bag until she found her comfortable familiar Earth Kingdom clothes. Once she had changed, she unbound her hair and let it fall loose around her shoulders. Zuko had told her not to take unnecessary risks, and he'd also told her that she was at far less risk if she could pass for Fire Nation… but Lien did not like the way it made her feel to be treated with concern by the Fire Nation guards and scorned by everyone else.

The innkeeper was, thankfully, not there when she left. She took a deep breath as she stepped out into the street.

Though she was nervous at first, after a few minutes had passed and nothing horrible had happened Lien began to relax. The atmosphere of the market wasn't all that different from the Misty Palms Oasis—though this was the first time she'd gone alone, during the final year of their stay in the desert she and Nara had been allowed to visit the market with no adult supervision, and there had always been a sort of novel freedom in that. While she missed being able to cover her face and disappear, the crowd offered its own form of anonymity: no one looked at her twice.

Unfortunately, the constant dull murmur of the crowd in the market made it impossible to pick out individual conversations. Feeling overwhelmed, but terrified at the thought of having to go back and tell Zuko that she had nothing, Lien backed away from the vendors and took a long look up and down the street.

There were a number of shops, most of them with a steady trickle of customers going in and out the doors. Well, Zuko _had_ suggested it, and right at the moment she couldn't think of anything better to do.

Not knowing how else to go about this, Lien began to duck into the shops one by one. No matter how much she listened, however, she didn't hear anything interesting; mostly it was just customers haggling with the merchants over prices. Nevertheless, she stood around awkwardly until someone noticed her—whether it was a friendly "Do you need help?" or an impatient "Are you going to buy something, kid?", she always ducked out the door the second that anyone spoke to her.

It was now nearly noon, and Lien was beginning to panic. She had _nothing—_ no information and no idea of what to do next, and their chances of finding Katara were getting smaller and smaller with each passing moment. There were no more shops to listen in: Lien had reached the end of the street, and she stared hopelessly out over the rest of the town, struggling not to cry.

As she trudged back down the street, she looked again at all of the shops she had visited. She could not go back into any of them, not now that she had been noticed in all of them. As she passed by display after display of wares, however, she came to a stop at one.

The shop was closed. She didn't know why it was closed, but since she couldn't go in regardless, it didn't much matter. Now, though, Lien noticed something she hadn't seen before: a tiny white lotus, stitched into the corner of one of the curtains that had been drawn across the window.

"If you're in the model for a new tea set, you're going to be waiting a while."

Lien jumped and whirled around with a squeak, her heart pounding. Standing behind her was a big, bearded man with a nasty grin on his face.

"Unless, that is, you like buying from rats." He spit on the ground, and then leaned forward to hover over her, still grinning. "Do you buy from rats, kid?"

Lien, terrified, could only wordlessly shake her head. Though she had no idea what he was talking about, it was clear enough what he wanted, and right now her every instinct was screaming at her to placate him.

"Seems like you have sense. I like a kid with sense." Lien flinched when he reached out a hand, but he only patted her on the shoulder. "Stay sensible, and you just might make it to adulthood." To Lien's immense relief, he then went on his way, laughing loudly at his own joke.

* * *

"This is bad."

After the strange encounter, Lien had been too terrified to remain out in the open. As soon as the stranger was out of sight and she could breathe again, she'd all but run back to the inn, where she'd bolted the door, drawn the shades, and slumped against the wall with her arms around her knees while she'd waited for Zuko to wake up.

Now, he was pacing from one end of the room to the other, his expression agitated as she told him what she'd heard. "But what does it _mean?_ " she asked.

Zuko stopped his pacing, and turned to face her. "It means," he said grimly, "that the Underground has been compromised. Katara must have gone into that shop to get information, thinking she'd find an ally. Instead, she was betrayed."

Lien was rubbing her arms. She knew what happened to waterbenders who were captured by the Fire Nation. She'd lived six years of it. Now, Katara…

"How are we going to get her _out?_ " The more she thought about what might be happening to Katara, the harder she shook.

"I think," Zuko said slowly, "that it's time I took up spying again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason it took me so long to start getting this book out was that for a while, I was completely _stuck_ on it. While I had the _emotional_ arc all laid out, as far as the actual _plot_ was concerned, all that I had was something along the lines of "firebending training happens, and also everyone's running around trying not to get caught by the Fire Nation", which... just didn't seem like enough. I only got unstuck thanks to some idea-bouncing with a friend, which went something like this:
> 
> *explains the AU I've been writing and all the problems I've been having coming up with a plot*
> 
> "Well, why don't you have someone actually get _caught_ by the Fire Nation?"
> 
> "... HOW DID I NEVER THINK OF THAT BEFORE!?"
> 
> So yeah, sometimes I just need a little bit of a nudge in order to see the obvious...


	8. Connection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "Signal to Noise" by Peter Gabriel

She couldn't see, and she couldn't move.

They'd snuck up on her so thoroughly that she hadn't even realized what was happening, much less had time to defend herself, until the sack was already over her head and her arms forcibly wrenched behind her back. Katara had not made it easy for them; she'd thrashed desperately against their grip and kicked out against her captors, but she'd been fighting blind, and they'd subdued her in the end.

"I truly am sorry about this," the merchant had whispered in her ear as she'd lain on the floor, tied hand and foot, the sack still over her head. "But they have my son, and I don't know what they'll do to him if I don't help them bring in runaways. He's only six."

Katara had believed her. Unfortunately, she'd been a bit too concerned about the child _she_ was responsible for to muster up any goodwill or forgiveness.

A few minutes later, she'd been hefted by two people, carried a short distance, and deposited on another hard surface. During the latter half of the walk, she'd heard the murmur of a crowd, but been unable to make out any words through the number of people talking and the sack over her head.

"Clear out!" an unfamiliar voice had said, much closer to her head. "Unless all of you want to face charges of sedition."

Now, she could hear nothing. Whatever they'd put her in, it didn't let any light through either, not even enough to filter through the sack. She could tell she was moving, but not much else.

For the first few minutes, she'd rolled around as best she could and tried to get an idea of where she was. As far as she could tell, she was in some sort of box that was little bigger than a coffin. The thought had made her shudder, and she'd quickly shoved it away.

Now, she lay still, trying to save her strength. They'd taken her waterskin and restricted her movements so much she'd be lucky to wiggle a finger, much less actually _bend_ anything; she wouldn't be fighting her way out of this until the situation changed. When that moment came, though, she was going to be ready.

In the meantime, she thought about what was happening back at their camp.

Zuko _must_ have noticed by now that she was later than intended. Soon, she knew, he and Lien would realize that Katara wasn't coming back at all, and then they'd be forced to face up to the need to continue their work without her.

 _Don't do anything stupid_ , she pleaded with him in her mind. _Please, Zuko, don't do anything stupid._ She didn't want to be here any more than they would want to lose her, but it wasn't worth the risk for him to try to rescue her. Katara had _done_ her part; the others had barely even _started_ theirs. If Zuko risked himself, much less Lien…

Katara gritted her teeth. That was _exactly_ the sort of thing that Zuko would do.

She had to get out of here, she decided right then and there. If nothing else, to prevent Prince Impulsive from coming after her and getting _himself_ killed.

So, once again, Katara found herself taking stock. She had no water, and if she knew the Fire Nation, she wasn't going to _get_ any water at any point in the foreseeable future. She'd surrendered her weapon at the gates of the town. Her arms and legs had been tied so tightly she could barely move, and even supposing that someone _did_ eventually untie her, she would be far too stiff for any hand to hand.

 _Just wait for the moment_ , she told herself. _Things might look bad now, but there_ will _be a moment, and you'll know it when you see it. In the meantime, there's nothing you can do, so you might as well try to conserve energy._

It was impossible to keep track of time in these conditions, so she didn't know whether minutes or hours had passed before the motion stopped. Katara shook herself; she had been slipping into a daze brought on by being unable to move, see, or hear, but now, she had to be ready.

A slight influx of light was the only warning she got before the sack was yanked roughly from her head. She would have liked to glare, but daylight was so bright after so much time in darkness that she could only cry out in pain, squeezing her eyes shut as tears streamed down her face.

"Too old," a voice above her said, different from the one that had addressed the crowd outside the shop. Cracking her eyes open into a squint, Katara could just make out a couple of silhouettes against the orange light of an evening sky.

"Well, you haven't found the Avatar tonight, soldiers, but the reward for a runaway is better than nothing." In spite of herself, Katara's heart began to beat faster. They were looking for Lien!

Roughly, they hauled her out of the box. They did not untie her. Instead, she was hefted under the arms by a pair of Fire Nation soldiers and carried, her feet scraping the ground. Though she did her best to look around and get a hint of where she was, she only managed to catch a few glimpses of military buildings and a tiled courtyard before they hauled her inside and the door slammed behind them. She could have been anywhere.

The next stop was a holding cell, with little more than a bucket in the corner and a pile of straw on the floor. She was not given a chair. Instead, she was set on the floor and propped against the wall; when she tried to resist, she couldn't do much more than squirm, and a quick blow right beneath the ribs soon put an end to that. While she was still struggling to breathe, the ropes were replaced with manacles, her wrists clamped to the wall above her head and her ankles bound together with barely a handspan's worth of chain between them.

"Well, Missy." It was the same speaker who'd congratulated his subordinates on catching a runaway, and Katara could now see well enough to tell that he was a middle-aged man. "I'd say that you've got some explaining to do." He knelt down in front of her, putting his face offensively close to hers. "Who is your master?"

Katara spit in his face.

Quick as a whip, his hand shot out to strike her across the face, hard enough to knock the side of her head into the wall. "You will show respect for your betters, girl," he said, his voice tight with anger. "We _will_ find out who you belong to, one way or another… and don't think that just because we're not allowed to damage military property, we can't still make your stay here _very_ unpleasant for you. Now, I'll ask you one more time."

He could bluster all he wanted; Katara wasn't talking. She turned away from him as much as she was able, and pressed her smarting cheek against the wall.

Immediately a set of fingers closed around her hair, yanking on her braid until she was forced to turn her head and face him. She let out a cry of surprise, and tears stood in the corners of her eyes as he pulled so hard it felt like her hair was about to be ripped out by its roots, but still she said nothing, only continuing to glare at him as he tried to break her resolve.

"A stubborn one, eh?" he said at last, releasing her hair though the action provided no immediate respite for her throbbing scalp. He stood, brushing straw from his pants. "Well, no matter. We'll locate your rightful master or find you a new one, with or without your help. Then _he_ can have the job of teaching you respect." He paused on his way out of the cell, turning to the guard at the door. "She's to have nothing to eat or drink until she decides to talk, and those chains are not to be unlocked except on my direct order. Understood?"

Katara heard a faint "Yes, sir" as the door clanged shut behind him.

* * *

She couldn't be sure how much time had passed. All she knew was that once again, she had been left in complete darkness and unable to move. Her stomach rumbled and clenched in on itself, but even that was secondary to the dryness in her mouth and throat. To make things even worse, the Fire Nation military had devised some way to pump dry, heated air into the holding cell, and before long Katara had a splitting headache on top of everything else.

Sleep was impossible in such conditions—which, come to think of it, had probably been the intention. Instead, Katara did the best she could to save her strength, and plan. Eventually, she knew, she'd get an opportunity, but this wasn't it.

There wasn't much she could do about her arms, but she made a point of moving her legs around as much as she could, to keep them from getting too stiff. She also recognized that if she was going to have any hope of fighting her way out of this, then she could not afford to let herself get too weak. Before long, she was going to need food and water—not to mention rest.

Katara grimaced in the dark. If she wanted to get any of those things, then she was going to have to lull her captors into complacency—which meant that she was going to have to talk. Not necessarily to tell them the _truth_ , but she needed to at least come up with something plausible, and to make them believe they'd broken her, and believe it long enough for her to make her escape.

They wanted to know who she "belonged" to, and that was the first issue: Katara had never _belonged_ to anyone. If she just made up a name, the ruse would quickly be discovered and her cover blown. The good news was that she might not _have_ to make anything up.

Katara smiled grimly in the dark as the first rough outline of a plan began to come together in her head.

* * *

The next morning (or at least, she assumed it was morning), she was rudely jolted out of her reverie by the creaking of the door and a slight influx of light.

"Have you had time to mend your manners?" the hated voice asked cheerfully as the commanding officer strode into the cell. He sounded so chipper that Katara wanted to kick him.

"Water," Katara croaked. She was too thirsty by this point to say anything else.

"Oh, you mean this?" He produced a small flask, which he dangled in front of her face. Katara's mouth opened involuntarily, and she found herself leaning forward without consciously willing it, but he snatched it back before she could do more than blink. "You can have a drink _after_ you've told me your master's name."

"It's forbidden for me to speak my master's name," Katara spat, slumping back against the stones. "That's one of _your_ rules, remember?"

"You may speak it to me." He shook the bottle slightly; Katara could hear the liquid sloshing around inside.

She could not help it: her eyes were drawn to that flask, to the near-exclusion of everything else. She was _so_ thirsty; that was one thing she didn't have to fake. Even so, she let it drag out for a few moments longer, licking her lips, before she finally let her head slump forward as if in defeat. "Taro. My master's name is Taro."

They actually _had_ broken a few slaves out of a compound whose commanding officer was named Taro, about half a year before they'd located Lien. Katara had spent most of the night racking her brains going through every breakout she and Zuko had orchestrated prior to finding Lien, and then narrowing it down to those cases where the ages of the slaves had been at least approximately close to her own, and where she could actually _remember_ the name of the commanding officer. So far, this one had seemed like her best bet.

"There now, was that so hard?" Instead of giving her the flask, however, he produced a tiny cup, no wider than the space enclosed by her linked thumb and forefinger, which he then filled before holding it to her lips. It was barely enough to wet her mouth, much less quench her thirst.

So _this_ was how they were going to play it. One sip of water to reward her for every piece of information she shared. Lovely.

"Where is his base located?"

"I don't know."

Immediately, the water was snatched away again. "That's not good enough."

"Look, I don't _know_ , okay? _You're_ the ones who never tell us anything or let us outside. What do you _expect_ me to say?"

"For one thing, how you got out in the first place."

Fortunately, Katara had planned for this as well. "Some people helped me."

"'Some people' isn't good enough. Who were they?"

"I don't _know!_ "

"You're telling me these people broke you out of a Fire Nation military base and never even bothered to introduce themselves?"

"Obviously, they were taking precautions in case of something like _this_."

The officer who was questioning her let out a breath through gritted teeth. "Describe them."

"There was a woman who could walk on water, and painted red stripes all over her face and arms. She always wore a veil, so I never got a good look at her face."

That at least seemed to satisfy him, for he allowed her another tiny sip of water. It was the best she'd been able to come up with; it wouldn't blow her cover to describe a disguise she hadn't used for years, and if anybody bothered to fact-check, their information would be consistent with what she'd told them.

"You said 'people'."

"There was also a man. Dressed in black, with a blue and white mask. He never took it off."

Another sip. "Did they tell you anything else? You're giving me nothing but scraps, girl, and I'm losing patience."

"They didn't tell me anything about themselves because they didn't want _you_ to know anything about them, okay? They never gave _anyone_ their real names! They just called themselves the Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit."

The questioning continued in this vein for quite some time. Katara was careful to give him enough specifics to keep her story believable, while at the same time withholding any information that might actually be _useful_. It wasn't hard to justify the vagueness of her information; most slaves were kept in locked rooms and never allowed to see the light of day, and the Underground didn't exactly provide a scenic escape route with lots of memorable details.

Finally, it ended, and the man pushed himself to his feet. "You can have food once we've confirmed your story— _if_ it turns out to be true."

Katara grimaced. At least her thirst was quenched now, but that only served to make the hunger pangs _worse_. More pressing than that, though, was the thought of what would happen when the Fire Nation military checked her story against their own records. At _best_ , she'd be shipped off to this Captain Taro's base to take the place of one of the slaves that she had once freed. At worst, Taro or someone else who worked there would recognize that she wasn't the same slave who'd escaped several years earlier, and then there would be more questions. Questions about what she was hiding.

If she was going to make a break for it, better to do it now: now, before any of her lies could be uncovered, before anyone managed to dig up information that could tie her back to Zuko or Lien, and before she got in any deeper than she already was. True, she was still pretty thoroughly immobilized, but at least she had some water in her system now, which was more than she'd had last night. Craning her neck, Katara aimed for the lock on one of her manacles, and spat.

The wad of liquid froze as soon as she breathed on it, forming a tiny patch of ice over and partially inside of the keyhole. It wasn't much, but she'd better figure out how to work with it, because it was all she was going to get.

When they had been children, Sokka had tried to "teach" her how to pick locks. At the time, after one too many insistent lectures that she might be captured by the Fire Nation some day, and _then_ she'd wish she'd listened to her big brother while she still had the chance, she'd rolled her eyes and asked how he was supposed to teach her something he could barely do himself. Later, years after she and Sokka had parted for the final time, when she and Zuko had made a career out of freeing slaves and locks and chains had become a horrifically regular part of their lives, she'd swallowed her pride and picked it up for real. Zuko, at least, actually knew what he was doing, and had taught her to pick locks with anything from a knife to a hairpin—but this was the first time she'd ever tried it with ice, and without the full use of her hands.

Well, there was nothing for it but to try. She wiggled her fingers, coaxing the ice to liquefy just enough to work its way into the lock mechanism before it solidified again. It was impossible to see what she was doing, but maybe if she could use the ice to feel around a bit…

"Hey! _Hey!_ What do you think you're _doing?_ "

Katara's head whipped around to face the door of her cell, just as the guard outside dropped the bucket he'd been holding, which clattered to the floor. As he unlocked the door, she struggled frantically to get the ice to catch on something so she could get a hand free, but the shackles remained stubbornly locked right up until the guard strode into the cell and placed a hand against the keyhole, searing away the ice.

His shout had brought several other guards running, all of whom piled into her cell as the first guard explained what had happened. Inwardly, Katara cursed herself: she'd blown her chance and gotten caught, and now they were going to be watching her all the more closely for that.

As a matter of fact, she was so busy kicking herself that she almost failed to notice the strange behavior of one of the other guards. Shortly after the commotion, he pushed his way to the front of the group, not with the intense hatred or smirking condescension of any of the others, but rather with a strange intensity that somehow made her even _more_ uncomfortable. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and left.

All the hairs on the back of Katara's neck stood on end. She had no idea what _that_ was about, but it was giving her a really bad feeling nonetheless. Sure enough, while the other guards continued to argue about what they should do to keep her from attempting another escape, two sets of footsteps were once more approaching her cell—and this time, they were accompanied by voices, which became increasingly more audible as the other guards stopped talking one by one to hear what they were saying.

"…sure it's the same one, Akira?"

"I'd know her face anywhere. I worked on the first ship that captured them, and she nearly killed me when she got away. That's definitely the same waterbender who's been working with the traitor prince."

…oh. Oh, _no_.

The door to the cell clanged open, and the guard who'd left so abruptly came back in, this time accompanied by his commanding officer. The other guards silently parted to let him through, where he knelt down in front of her, this time with a huge grin on his face.

"Well well, little waterbender." He looked like the cat-owl who'd swallowed the canary-mouse. "Now you've _really_ got some explaining to do."

* * *

From then on, she was not left for even a single minute without a guard. Worse yet, they'd put the hood back over her head to keep her from repeating that stunt with the water.

Every morning, a Fire Nation soldier would come into her cell to give her a small cup of water and a bowl of tasteless, mushy porridge—both of which she would have to have fed _to_ her, because her hands were never unchained. Shortly after that, another soldier would come in with a bucket, and that was even _worse_. After she used it (and if she refused to use it, she'd receive a sharp rap from one of the guards in a place that made her release her bladder whether she wanted to or not), the hood was pulled back over her head and she was unchained from whatever they'd affixed her to and taken for a brief walk.

During these walks, her wrists were kept locked behind her back, and her feet were chained so closely together that she could only move forward at the barest shuffle. The hood was never removed from her head, so she could see no details of where she was being kept. Though she did not know how many guards accompanied her, and no one ever spoke except to give gruff orders, there was always one person to either side of her, gripping her arms not quite hard enough to bruise but still just hard enough to promise further force if she made a false move. Any sudden movement on her part, even if she had only tripped because she couldn't see where she was going, and those hands would burn with a sudden flash of heat.

The walk always ended at an upright box, which was far too narrow for her to sit or even to properly crouch, but also not quite high enough for her to stand upright. There, the manacles around her hands and feet would be chained to the side and floor of the box, she would hear a door slammed closed behind her, and then the box would start moving.

Though it was impossible to tell where she was going, the steady back-and-forth rocking motion made it clear that they were on the road. There was also no way of telling how long each journey lasted, but her neck, back, legs, and upper arms were inevitably screaming with pain well before it ended. By the time they finally stopped, Katara often had tears running down her face, unseen behind the concealment of the hood.

After they had stopped, the door would be opened and Katara yanked from the box and forced once more to walk, her cries of pain ignored. Just when the kinks were finally beginning to work their way out of her body, she would be forced once more to sit: in a chair equipped with straps to hold her arms and legs in place if she was lucky, against the wall with her hands chained above her head if she wasn't. Once she was secured, the hood would be removed, assaulting her eyes with far too much light while she was questioned by a different Fire Nation officer in a different cell from the one she'd left that morning.

Always, they wanted to know the same things: where was Zuko? What was her relationship with him? What were their plans to overthrow the Phoenix King? Their questions were always about Zuko, never the Avatar: at least they did not know about Lien.

Every time, they offered both threats and incentives in return for her cooperation: she would get no food or water until she talked. She would be allowed an extra glass of water if she talked. If she persisted in not talking, then she could do without the chamber pot. If she gave them useful information, she would still be gagged but have her eyes uncovered, or be allowed to sit the next time they transported her. Always, a thousand variations on the same theme.

Throughout every session, Katara stayed mum, not even sparing the breath to spit words of defiance. She'd already figured out that they needed her alive; they could not afford to hurt her too badly, and they could only withhold food and water for so long. If it came down to a choice between suffering or betrayal, then she was going to suffer.

After the questioning sessions ended—and they _did_ eventually end—one of the lower-ranked guards would come in with food and water. Sometimes, they were reasonably professional, giving her one spoonful or sip at a time and leaving her adequate time to swallow. Others, they would tip the cup so quickly that as much water went onto her face or up her nose as down her throat, or shove the spoon into her mouth so hard she nearly gagged and her chin was covered in porridge.

 _If_ she was lucky, one of the guards would bring in the bucket before the hood was yanked back over her head and the cell door slammed shut. If not, she would be left with the choice of either holding it until next time or soiling herself. Then, she was left in the dark, unable to move, see, or hear until the Fire Nation military saw fit to move her to the _next_ location, at which point the whole routine would start all over again.

Her position got so uncomfortable at times that it was nearly impossible to sleep. She tried to anyway; if she wanted to have any chance of getting out of this, then she needed to have a clear head. Most of her attempts were half-successful at best, and felt more like falling into a daze than getting any sort of real rest, but she reminded herself that it was better than nothing and that she had to take whatever she could get.

Whenever she couldn't manage to get even that much rest, Katara thought… and planned.

There _had_ to be a reason they kept moving her around so much, and it couldn't be just to keep her disoriented. Given that they were so interested in her connection to Zuko, she imagined they had to be taking her somewhere more secure than the Earth Kingdom colonies… somewhere where she would be beyond rescue.

Of course, the possibility that Zuko might be unable to rescue her concerned her much less than the likelihood that he was going to try anyway… and that he was going to get himself killed or worse in the trying.

They were using her to get to him, and they weren't even trying to hide it. If they were only interested in her healing abilities, she would have been locked away in some base by now, forced to heal wounded soldiers. Instead, she was being transported, steadily, to some specific place, and constantly questioned every chance they got. They were setting a trap, and if she knew Zuko, he was going to charge right into it.

Which only made escaping all the more imperative, and not just because Zuko was someone she cared about and didn't want to lose (thought that was certainly a factor). The future of the world depended on him staying free. If they ever did succeed in taking down Ozai, they would still need someone else to take the throne. Not only that, but if both of them were captured, Lien would be all alone, with no one to look after her or teach her firebending. Worse, if _Lien_ fell into the hands of the Fire Nation, that would put an end to _any_ hope the rest of the world might have.

Katara _had_ to escape, but the question was, how _could_ she? Whatever else it might be, the Fire Nation military was clearly all too experienced at imprisoning waterbenders. Every day, she'd looked for a chance to make a break for it, and every day, she'd come up empty. Even when she was allowed to move around, her range of motion was kept so limited that she could barely _walk_ , let alone fight, either with water or without it—and of course, she was never allowed near any sort of liquid unless she had been completely immobilized first.

No matter how hard she looked for it, the opportunity failed to materialize: her captors were being _very_ careful. If she wanted to escape, she was either going to have to be able to move freely, or have unsupervised access to water. At the moment, it didn't seem as if either of those things would be forthcoming any time soon.

For the first time throughout all of the days (weeks? _Months?_ ) that she'd spent in captivity, Katara took a break from plotting how she might escape and began to seriously consider the possibility that she might not be able to.

The cells that she was thrown into were kept as dry as a bone. Katara was never allowed near even so much as a single drop of water, except to drink, and even then they only gave her just as much as was necessary to keep her alive. There was no moisture to grab from the air even if she _could_ have moved; other than that, she didn't think she had enough water in her body to work up a sweat, or even to spit. Even without water, she had to be able to move freely if she wanted to be able to fight.

Underneath the sack, Katara felt her eyes beginning to burn, even though she was too dried out at this point to produce proper tears. The last thing she'd said to Zuko and Lien was not to worry about her, and that she'd come back safely. Now, the one thing she'd _promised_ not to let happen to her had happened, and she was going to die alone.

It was just as well, really, that it was her, and it was now. Katara had already served her purpose. She had nothing left to teach, and no role left to fulfill in the larger scheme of the war that could not be handled just as well by somebody else. Zuko and Lien would both grieve, she knew. They would take it hard, and she wished she didn't have to do this to them, but… the world would not notice her absence. The world would move on.

Though she'd been trying to console herself, the thought of how little she mattered only produced a wave of bleak despair, and Katara wailed out loud until the guard started banging his baton against the bars and yelled at her to shut up.

* * *

Later, she didn't know how much later, after she'd cried herself out and was still just as thirsty, sore, and alone as she had been before, Katara came to a realization: she had to at least try to say goodbye.

Slipping into the Spirit World was, at least, a relief from the physical discomfort. She only allowed herself a few moments every time, because she didn't want to give the guards a chance to guess what she was up to, but that was a few moments during which she could forget that she was trapped, and dehydrated, and in near-constant pain.

When she went in, she never saw the same place twice: an endless iceberg with grass frozen underneath, a swampy forest where balls of light flitted between the trees, a field of flowers that were taller than she was. Always different. Always achingly lovely.

"Have you seen the Avatar?" She asked the question of every spirit she met. "Have you met the bridge between the worlds?"

Some of them didn't want anything to do with a human intruder. Some of them did not seem to understand what she was talking about. Those who did give her an answer always said that they hadn't.

Then, she would have to return to her body, where all of the aches and pains would hit her all over again. There, she would be faced once more with constant thirst, and endless darkness, and bad food, and yet another round of questions from yet another guard that she refused to answer.

"I don't know what to do," she confessed to Huu as the two of them sat together in his little oasis of melted ice, Katara with her knees pulled up to her chin. "I can only risk a few minutes every day, and at this rate the chances of me and Lien actually meeting up are…"

"Separation is an illusion." Katara turned to look at him, barely moving her head she was so weary. "That's what I told the Avatar the last time we met, and I'll say it again now." He grinned. "You're not nearly as far apart as you think."

"What I think is that I'm going to die here, and never see them again."

"Are you so sure about that?"

About to ask what he was talking about, Katara noticed that he was pointing, and turned to look in the direction he'd indicated… and saw Lien pushing her way through the mist.

"Lien!" The second the girl came into view they ran to each other, Katara's sprint throwing up splashes of icy water that soaked the entire lower half of her body. Then, they were in each other's arms, Katara was crying, Lien was crying, and Huu had quietly stepped back into the mist to give them some privacy.

"I'm so glad you came," Katara sobbed out at last. "There are so many things that I want to tell you…"

"Katara, where are you?" Lien's hands were shaking, and her face had the same haunted look that Aang's had held when he'd dragged them to the Southern Air Temple only to find his people massacred. "Zuko's been looking all over, but we can't _find_ you."

"I don't know," Katara confessed. "And I wouldn't tell you even if I did." Gently, she gripped Lien's shoulders and set her back, so they could look at each other face to face. "You have to tell Zuko to stop trying to find me."

"But, Katara—"

"No buts. This is important." She wrapped her arms around Lien once more. "I wish it didn't have to end this way. Believe me, I wish that more than anything else in the world." Once more, tears were running freely down her face. "But the world needs the two of you far more than it needs me. We absolutely _cannot risk you_. The guards keep asking me questions about Zuko. If he tries to save me, he'll be walking into a trap."

To her surprise, Lien stiffened in her arms. Almost before Katara had even finished speaking, she shoved away from her with a surprising amount of force, turning instead to face out into the mist-obscured ice.

"Katara, you _promised!_ "

"I… Lien, what do you—"

"Your necklace," she sniffled, wrapping her arms around herself, her back still turned. "Zuko still has your necklace. He told me what it means when you give it to him. I—" At that point, though, she broke down completely, sinking to her knees without a single care for the icy water that was soaking into her skirts.

Unable to do anything else, Katara stepped forward and laid a hand on her back as her shoulders continued to shake. "You were supposed to come _back!_ " Lien choked out at last.

To that, Katara could say nothing, only continue to hold her.

"I wish I could," she repeated at last, her voice so quiet it was nearly a whisper. "Believe me, there's nothing I wouldn't give right now to get out of that prison, and get back to wherever you are." Lien, in answer, only sniffled.

"I do promise I'm never going to stop _trying_ ," Katara continued. "If I see any opportunity at all, no matter how small, I'm going to take it." She sighed. "It's just that this time, I'm not sure whether _trying_ is going to be enough… and if the two of you try to come after me, I'm afraid that this will end with _three_ people languishing away in a Fire Nation prison rather than just one."

"It isn't _fair_." Lien was wiping her eyes, but she wasn't having much success at it, since more tears kept falling to replace the old ones.

"No," Katara agreed softly, "it isn't. But then again life never is." She stood, and held out a hand. After a few seconds, Lien reluctantly grabbed it and allowed Katara to pull her to her feet.

"Listen," she continued. "I don't have much time. I have to return to my body before the guards get suspicious." She gripped Lien's shoulders, and looked into her eyes. "Work hard on your firebending. Do whatever Zuko tells you. Know that I love you, and consider you my own." Gently, she laid a hand on the side of Lien's face. "Tell Zuko I would have fought by his side, until the very end." She did her best to smile, though the tears were now streaming freely down her face. "But it's time for both of you to let me go."

She turned, then, and started walking into the mist. Despite feeling like her heart was being shredded into pieces, she did not look back, nor did she answer the increasingly desperate cries of "Katara! _Katara!_ KATARA!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stereotypical damsel in distress: "Someday my prince is going to come and save me, I just know it!"
> 
> Katara: "Zuko, DON'T YOU DARE."
> 
> That thing with Akira is a callback that goes aaaaaaaaaaalllllllllll the way back to _Ripples in the Water_. I _might_ have done a whole lot of Bumi-worthy mad cackling when I realized I had an opportunity for something the characters were concerned about at the time to actually come back to bite them.


	9. Attachment

After Lien had finished repeating what Katara had told her, Zuko said nothing, only sat staring into the darkness so long that she began to wonder whether he'd even heard her—even though she _knew_ that he had.

When he finally did speak, his voice was quiet, but firm with conviction. "We're going after her."

"But she thinks it's a trap," Lien repeated miserably, drawing her knees in against her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins.

"I _know_ it's a trap. That doesn't mean I'm just going to leave her there."

Now it was Lien's turn to stare into the flames. While she knew they sometimes disagreed with each other and even occasionally fought, this was the first time she could remember where Katara had been telling her to do one thing and Zuko another.

"But how are we going to _find_ her?" Lien cried out. "We don't know where she _is!_ _She_ doesn't even know where she is!"

"If there's one thing I've learned," Zuko replied, the quiet, iron calm of his voice a contrast to her wail of despair, "it's that you can't set a trap without bait."

* * *

They had long since had to leave the town where Katara had disappeared. Lien was too young to stay in such a small community by herself without attracting notice, and Zuko could not show his face at all. Nevertheless, if they wanted information, then they had to stay close to civilization. Zuko spread out a map over the top of a large, flat rock and started tapping points on its surface.

"Right now, we're here, and this is the town where Katara went missing." The paper vibrated slightly under his touch. "If we want to get information, the best thing to do is to find a city with a strong Fire Nation presence, which is large enough for you to lose yourself in the crowd."

Lien's fingers trembled as her hand drifted to rest over a marker on the map… the one whose position was marked by a stylized red flame.

"That's exactly what I was thinking." Zuko stood. "It'll take us at least a week to get there on foot, so we'd better get moving."

The majority of their journey was incredibly tense. They spoke little, and firebending lessons fell by the wayside as Zuko pushed them to walk almost nonstop from sunrise until sunset. Though he made her meditate every morning and light the fire every night, after multiple months of doing nothing but walk and spy with still no sign of Katara they were both far too tired and too worried to engage in any real learning.

Every night, right before going to sleep, Lien also performed her own meditation, to journey to the Spirit World and look for Katara, but never found her: Katara, it seemed, was standing by her conviction, and trying to keep them from walking into a trap.

If, that was, she wasn't already dead.

By the time they reached the city, Lien's nerves were stretched tighter than a bowstring, and she could barely sleep. As she and Zuko stood, looking out over the high walls and the Fire Nation guards from the safety of a nearby copse of trees, Lien swallowed hard. Though Zuko had already told her how a Fire Festival worked, this would be the first time she'd actually _been_ to one.

At this point, they'd been camping outside the city walls for the past four days, sheltering among the trees without the benefit of a fire. Every night, Zuko had disappeared shortly after sunset, only to come back several hours later with food, Fire Nation clothing, and festival masks. He never told her how he'd gotten it, and Lien never asked.

" _This is a big Fire Nation holiday,_ " Zuko had explained, " _and it's traditional for everyone to wear masks. If they're laying a trap, this is exactly when they'll be expecting me to show up. Remember, they_ want _us to have this information, and if they're going to reveal it, now would be the perfect time._ "

Now, that time had finally come: they day they were to learn Katara's fate, one way or the other. They dressed in tense silence, Lien doing her best not to look at the bright red clothes even as she changed into them. After she was done, Zuko made a few last-minute adjustments to make sure they would cover the scars on her back and shoulders, before pulling her hair up into an appropriate Fire Nation style. His own hair was already gathered into a tight knot at the top of his head, far different from the shaggy mess she was used to.

"Now remember," he reiterated as they strapped on their masks, "if we get separated, meet me back here. Don't waste time wandering around the city looking for me, and don't go off on your own. A lot of other people will be wearing the exact same masks that we are, so don't assume it's me just because you see this." He tapped the surface of the painted face that currently lay over his own. Behind the hardened face of her own mask, Lien bit her lip and nodded.

After that, there was nothing more to say. After a few minutes of watching the road from in between the leaves, Zuko motioned her forward, and they set off at a brisk walk toward the gates of the city.

The festival was far too loud. It was also far too bright.

It was full dark by the time they got inside the city, but a multitude of torches lit up the fairgrounds almost as bright as day, and no matter which way she looked, there were always flames flashing right at the corner of her eye. In addition, everything around them was red, red, red, from the red banners hanging from every window and doorway to the red-roofed pavilions lining the streets to the red lanterns that had been strung up to hover in the air, and a faceless, red-clad crowd was pressing in on her from all sides…

"Lien." Zuko's warm fingers gently squeezed her shoulder. "Lien, _breathe_."

Spasmodically, she sucked in a gasp of air, and then another and another. Zuko now had both hands on her shoulders and was guiding her through the crowd, but Lien wasn't paying attention to where they were going; at the moment, it was all she could do just to inhale and exhale.

Their destination, as it turned out, was a bench near the edge of the festival grounds, a fact that Lien didn't process until Zuko pushed her gently down onto it, then lowered himself to sit beside her, one arm still wrapped around her shoulders.

"Breathe," he repeated, rubbing gentle circles over her back. "In and out. Slowly. That's it. Close your eyes if you have to. Don't think about anything but breathing."

Slowly, under the warm touch of his hand and the gentle, calming influence of his voice, Lien's breathing began to steady as the panic drained out of her. As the terror receded and her heart slowed, the realization dawned on her that she'd just fallen apart in public over a color she didn't like and the sight of a few flames, and she slumped against the back of the bench, burying her face in her hands. Her fingers scrabbled over the hard surface of the mask. If she couldn't even handle herself at a festival, _how_ was she supposed to help Katara?

"Better now?" Zuko asked. Too embarrassed to speak, Lien only nodded.

"You know," he said after a few more minutes had passed in silence, "there's no real reason you _have_ to be here. I'll be fine on my own if you'd rather go back to camp."

Now that she was no longer on the verge of a breakdown, Lien could feel her face burning with shame. Right now Katara was in a _Fire Nation prison_ , and who knew what sorts of things they were doing to her, and meanwhile Lien had completely lost her composure just because a few people were standing a bit too close? What was _wrong_ with her? "I… I'll stay," she whispered, her voice sounding small and timid even to her own ears.

Without inflection, Zuko nodded, and stood. "We'd better get back to the festival, then." He held out his hand. "But if you change your mind, you're still free to leave at any time."

Wordlessly, Lien allowed him to pull her to her feet. She wasn't going to leave until they had what they came for, she vowed, and she wouldn't let Zuko see her fear again no matter how bad it got. She thought that she owed Katara that much.

They didn't seem to be going in any particular direction. Lien shook her head when Zuko asked if she would like to play any games, but they did pause a few times to watch performers juggling fireballs, creating giant blasts of flame, or writing calligraphy in the air. Lien spent an extensive amount of time staring at the latter, and as she watched verse after verse of poetry take form in flickering flame before her eyes, she felt something uncurl in her belly that for once wasn't dread, or memories of pain.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Lien, mesmerized, could only nod.

"I can try to teach you to do that, if you like. I have to warn you, though, that I've never been good at that kind of control."

Zuko not having control was difficult for Lien to imagine: she'd never seen him burn anyone by accident or set anything on fire that he didn't _mean_ to set on fire, and she knew that if he concentrated, he could keep a fire burning at a steady temperature for hours on end. Before she could think of the right words to express this, though, the festival was abruptly interrupted by a fanfare of horns.

Immediately, the poem that had been taking form before them evaporated into smoke. Zuko snapped to attention beside her. "I think this is it."

There was no need for Lien to ask him what he meant. Instead, they surrendered themselves to the motion of the crowd, and let themselves be carried toward the large stage which, though it was at the exact center of the festival, had stood dark and silent for as long as they'd been there.

It was not dark or silent now. As the festival had progressed, the area surrounding the central stage had been cordoned off by Fire Nation soldiers. Immediately behind the soldiers stood another group of people wearing different uniforms and no armor, each of them bearing an instrument; this must have been the source of the fanfare. As for the stage itself… Lien looked up, and saw that standing in the middle, surrounded by a ring of torchlight that hadn't been there before, there now stood a man in a military dress uniform, the firelight glinting from the multitude of medals he wore pinned to his chest. In one of his hands, he held a rolled-up scroll. Raising his free hand, he shot a fireball into the air.

A hush fell over the crowd. There was something about the silence that made the hair stand up on the back of Lien's neck, and this time, she _knew_ she wasn't just overreacting: Zuko's hand tightened around her shoulder, and she could feel the tension in his fingers.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the soldier atop the platform began. He was not shouting, but his voice still carried so even the people in the very back of the crowd could hear it perfectly—or maybe that was just due to the unnatural hush that had fallen over everyone. "Now that you have had your fill of food and festivities, it is time for the annual reading of edicts."

There was not a peep from the crowd in response as he unrolled the scroll and held it in front of his face. The silence, however, was tense, and filled with a nervous shifting of bodies.

"First of all, there has recently been an increase in activity from a terrorist organization known as the Order of the White Lotus. Their actions include, but are not limited to, attacks on Fire Nation military bases and harboring dangerous fugitives. Anyone belonging to this group, or others like it, will be charged with treason, and anyone having information regarding their activities or whereabouts is not to engage, but to report it immediately to the nearest person in authority, and any representations of white lotus symbols are to be treated with suspicion. If you see something, say something.

"Secondly, the annual reminder that the bending of any element other than fire remains strictly prohibited. Anyone found to be knowingly harboring a waterbender or an earthbender will be faced with charges of treason, and all unauthorized bending activity must be reported immediately."

Here, the speaker paused, and lowered his scroll. "It is not our intention to cause alarm," he said at last, "and we urge the people to refrain from panic. Let me reassure you, however, that every measure we have taken is for the sake of maintaining safety." The speaker smiled. Lien shuddered; it was not a nice smile. It looked like the smile her Master had given her whenever he was at his angriest, and had just figured out the perfect punishment for whatever she had supposedly done wrong.

"Recently, a waterbender attempted to assassinate the Phoenix King." Lien gasped, and Zuko squeezed her shoulder in warning. "Her execution has been scheduled, as is traditional for traitors, for the day before the summer solstice. We hope, meanwhile, that the new security measures we've implemented will prevent any further such incidents."

* * *

It had to be Katara. There was never any question about it.

The grand announcement in the middle of the Fire Festival, the specification that the so-called "assassin" had been a waterbender… all of the pieces had fallen into place far too neatly for it to be a coincidence. Now that they had a _where_ and a _when_ , the only question remaining was _how_.

The summer solstice was months away. They had plenty of time—which was probably exactly what had been intended. The fact remained, though, that if they wanted to help Katara, they still had a continent and an ocean to cross first.

The fastest way, of course, would be to either steal or stow away on an airship… but it was also by far the riskiest. Every Fire Nation military base in the whole of the Earth Kingdom would be on high alert for him to do exactly that, and just because he knew it was a trap, that didn't mean Zuko had to make it easy for them to spring it—especially not with Lien at risk as well. They had time. Until he had Katara actually within his sights, it was better to play it safe.

So, they slipped out of the Fire Festival as unobtrusively as they had come. Then, in the confusion and disorder of all the festivities, Zuko snuck onto the nearest farm under cover of darkness and stole an ostrich-horse.

"If they'll notice a missing airship, won't they notice that?" Lien asked, voice trembling, when he returned to camp leading the animal, which had a hood thrown over its eyes.

Zuko, however, shook his head. "It takes someone really reckless or really desperate to steal from the Fire Nation military," he explained as he cinched up the saddle. "Livestock gets stolen all the time."

Once again, they had to leave most of their belongings behind for the sake of speed—Zuko allowed only his and Katara's weapons, the most precious of their personal belongings, a bit of dried food, some blankets, and a change of clothes each. Everything else was buried or burned.

Every night, they rode as fast and as long as the ostrich-horse could manage. Every day, they collapsed in an exhausted heap on the softest bit of ground they could find, and slept.

Every day, Lien ventured to the Spirit World to search for Katara. Every time, she found nothing.

"How do we know she's not already dead?" she asked when they finally reached the coast. It felt as if the journey had taken years, even though Zuko was quick to reassure her that it had only been a few months.

"We don't." Zuko finished unloading the last of their supplies, before giving the ostrich-horse a slap on the rump—either it would find its way back to its original home, or it would end up in the hands of someone in need of a good animal. "But I think it's unlikely. Remember, they know Katara is a healer. As long as they have a use for her, they're not going to let her die."

"What do we do now?" she asked, changing the subject, because Katara being dead was a possibility she didn't want to think about.

"Now," Zuko said, "we get on a ship."

* * *

They had to be quick, but they also had to be careful. Though two more strangers in a bustling harbor town were unlikely to attract any particular notice, he was still painfully aware that the Fire Nation was now on the lookout for him specifically. Thankfully, this was not Zuko's first time stowing away on a ship.

A quick break-in to the harbor master's office got him a look at the makes, crew, and itineraries of all of the ships that were currently waiting at anchor. Zuko took a few minutes to memorize the most promising candidates before putting the records back exactly as he'd found them and slipping back out into the night.

As he made his way back, he mulled over the possible choices, taking into account every conceivable factor that might affect his plans: training of crew, potential hiding spots, ports of call, expected length of the journey, and the likelihood of missing supplies from the food and water stores being noticed. By the time he had made it back to camp, Zuko had settled on a merchant ship, Fire Nation in origin but crewed by civilians, that was scheduled to leave for the capital in two days' time.

Zuko made good use of those two days. Nights, he spent sneaking in and out of the ship, using one of the storage compartments to stash a small cache of nonperishable food. If someone noticed it before the departure of the ship, well, he'd just have to abort and try again with another.

Nobody noticed. The night before the scheduled departure, Zuko caused a distraction by knocking one of the ship's storage crates into the cart of a passing merchant. During the ensuing argument between the guard and the unfortunate cabbage merchant over whose fault it was and who'd be responsible for covering the damages, he smuggled Lien aboard.

She was terrified. He could hear her fear in her stiff silence, and felt it in the violent shaking of her whole body every time he touched her. Thankfully, by this point Zuko had learned the layout and guard shifts of this ship quite thoroughly, and he'd made sure to take into account Lien's lack of skill in stealth. Nevertheless, not wanting to tempt fate, he hustled her along as quickly as she could go, and once they'd wedged themselves into the tiny storage compartment and settled themselves into the rough nest of blankets he'd made behind a tall stack of crates, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close against his chest until her shaking stopped and she relaxed into an exhausted sleep.

He'd thought, at the time, that that would be the worst of it. As it turned out, he'd been painfully wrong.

Despite the fact that he hadn't slept at all the night before, Zuko stayed awake throughout most of the loading process—the tension alone (not to mention the touch of the Sun, which he was aware of even from within the closed space) was enough to keep him in a state of alertness. Only when he felt the motion of real waves beneath him did he finally begin to relax. He was just beginning to drift off when Lien stirred to life against him.

"Zuko?"

"Yeah," he reassured her as she blinked awake. "I'm here."

"I don't feel very well," she groaned—right before doubling over and throwing up in his lap.

It was at that point, and during the several miserable days that followed, that Zuko began to realize how severely he'd miscalculated: it had never occurred to him that Lien, despite being Water Tribe by birth, had never before set foot on a ship. Of course she wouldn't be used to the motion.

There was very little that he could do for her. The best course of action, he knew, would be to take her up on deck where she could see the horizon, but that was not possible, for obvious reasons. What little he could do—holding her hair back every time she emptied her stomach, encouraging her to take small sips of water and nibble on the blandest food that he could find, simply being there to rub her back when she had nothing left to bring up and could only lie sprawled in his lap in a miserable heap—always seemed to be woefully inadequate.

_Katara would have known what to do_ , he thought desperately as he held a bowl under Lien's head and listened to her retching—he'd finally managed to coax her into eating and drinking a little, only for all of it to come right back up again a few minutes later. Katara would not only have seen this coming, she'd have known in advance exactly which medicines to bring in order to ease it. Zuko had nothing to offer but a damp cloth, a bucket, and a few soothing words—scant comfort to a child so sick she could barely even swallow.

"How much longer?" she rasped, once, after yet another round of vomiting—even though she was desperately tired, the constant nausea would not let her sleep.

"Only a few more days," he reassured desperately. "Just try to hold out for a few more days."

When they finally dropped anchor, Zuko had to carry her off the ship. She was light, far lighter than she should have been, and the amount of weight she had lost was concerning, to say the least. To make things worse, her illness persisted even after they were back on dry land, and it took several days for her stomach to settle as she gradually readjusted.

Had it been a mistake to bring her with him? Should he have just done as Katara had asked, and cut his losses and left her to her fate? The risk to himself would have been one thing— _he_ knew exactly what he was getting into. The risk to _Lien_ , though? What she needed right now was plain food, and medicine, and a safe place to sleep while she recovered, and Zuko could give her none of those things. All that he had to offer was a hard cave floor, and the scraps of whatever he could manage to steal, and the warmth of his hands against her back as she lay wrapped up in a layer of blankets because even the slightest movement would make the sickness worse. He'd come here intending to get Katara out of the Fire Nation's clutches. Instead, he'd only put Lien in danger of joining her.

Whatever his misgivings, though, it was too late to turn back now. For better or for worse, they were already in the Fire Nation, and trying to leave the same way they'd come was only going to make Lien sicker. He'd made his choice, and now his only option was to follow through.

It took several days, but when Lien finally recovered enough to take more than a few sips of water, and then more than a few tiny nibbles of food, it was a huge relief… even if her ordeal had left her far too skinny and weak for his liking.

To make things worse, his worry for Lien was compounded by worry over what _he_ was going to do. Yes, he'd reassured her when they'd first set out for the Fire Nation that they had time: but he'd also _used_ time, first crossing the Earth Kingdom, then crossing the ocean, then tending to Lien in her illness. There were now only a couple of weeks left until Katara's scheduled execution: he could not afford to wait for Lien to make a full recovery.

He'd spent a good deal of time during the past few days sneaking into the city under cover of night, stealing money and anything else useful that he could get his hands on. He'd done all he could, and now, there was no more putting off what he would have to do next.

"Lien," he said at sunset. She looked at him, and though she did not speak and he had not told her of his plans, he could see from the dread on her face that she had at least some inkling of what he was going to say.

"I have to go after Katara now. I don't think there will be enough time if I wait any longer.

"There should be about a week's worth of food here," he continued, indicating the cache that he'd been stocking up while she recovered. "If I'm not back by the time that runs out, there's some money here as well." He nudged a bag full of clinking coins. "That should be enough to get you passage on a ship back to the Earth Kingdom, and to cover your food and lodging for the rest of the journey."

"The… the rest of the journey?" Lien looked up at him with wide blue eyes. "Zuko, what are you… what are you talking about?"

"I think that you know." He reached out to rest both hands on her shoulders. "I have to rescue Katara, and I can't take you with me. You'd only slow me down, and besides, you're the Avatar. You're too valuable to risk." Zuko took a deep breath. "I don't think I have to tell you there's a chance I won't come back. If that happens, you'll be on your own."

He unrolled a map of the Earth Kingdom. "Nori, Xi Wang, and Nara said they'd be heading here." He tapped a town to the east of the Si Wong. "If I don't come back, you need to get in contact with them, and have Xi Wang finish your firebending training. If for some reason you can't contact them…" He closed his eyes, and considered what he was about to say, but there was really no other option. "If you can't find another firebending teacher you can trust, then head for the Sun Warrior ruins." He spread out another map, this one of the Fire Nation, on top of the first, and indicated the island he was talking about. "I can't tell you more now, but if all else fails, you'll find something there that will help you."

By this point, Lien was shaking severely. "Zuko, I… I don't think I can do this."

"Are you sure about that?" He spoke quietly. "I won't lie to you: I know how risky this is. If you want me to call off the plan, just say the word, and I will."

Lien bit her lip, but said nothing. After a few minutes had passed, Zuko nodded.

"You have until full dark to change your mind. Remember: only wait for me as long as the food lasts. As soon as it's gone, you need to do whatever you can on your own. It doesn't matter whether you think I might still be alive, or even if you _know_ I'm still alive; don't wait up for me, and whatever you do, _don't_ try to come after me yourself."

After that, there was nothing more to say. The time spent waiting for the light to die was tense, but still Lien said nothing. Finally, the familiar constellations began to twinkle at them out of a blue-black sky, and Zuko turned to Lien.

He was wearing all black clothing, and had strapped his swords to his back. Lien, meanwhile, wore an ill-fitting red dress that hung loosely on her too-skinny frame, her skin only just beginning to regain its normal color from its sickly ashen pallor and dark circles under her eyes. He did not want to leave her like this… but, he reminded himself, it would only be temporary, and he'd put every precaution in place in case the worst _did_ happen.

Before he had time to do any more thinking, he pulled her into a brief hug, before setting her back by the shoulders and holding her at arm's length. "Take care of yourself. I promise, I'll be back as soon as I can." He held out his dagger, and after a few hesitant moments, she reached out to take it, biting her lip. "In the meantime, though, you know what to do." He waited for her nod before slipping out into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This'll end well. Everything will go off without a hitch and the characters have _absolutely nothing_ to worry about, I'm sure.


	10. Surrender, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "Don't Give Up" by Peter Gabriel

Katara still didn't know where she was, but she _had_ at least managed to figure out that she was no longer being moved.

Oh, the hoods and the chains and the desiccated cells remained, as did the endless rounds of questions about Zuko and their plans, but gone were the tiny boxes and the jolting roads. Now, there was only one cell, and one group of guards who questioned her over and over again.

In place of the moving box, a pair of guards now took her out walking twice a day. Though the hood never came off of her head when she left the cell, she thought they were somewhere outside, and that the walks took place at a time close to sunrise and sunset: a guess, judging from the sounds and the smells that managed to filter through the sack over her head, but a good one, she thought.

Based on what she could deduce from what she already knew, she'd _thought_ that they had brought her to whatever military base was currently in need of a healer, and that they were waiting to break her in before they trusted her with any sort of work. As it turned out, though, that assumption was horribly, awfully wrong.

The first inkling she got that something was different this time came after she'd been fed. Normally the hood was yanked back over her head the second she had finished swallowing the last bite of the tasteless slop that was her only source of sustenance, but this time, it was left off. Katara tensed as the guards, rather than questioning her or exercising her as usual, instead began checking her shackles. Her wrists were fixed firmly to the wall, her ankles pulled together as close as they would go and then bolted to the floor for good measure. The guards said nothing as they worked, only made their checks and adjustments in a tense, efficient silence, ignoring Katara's demands for an explanation as easily as if she were nothing more than a piece of furniture.

After they had finished, the guards all lined up and filed from the cell in silence, the last of them closing (but not locking) the door behind her. The hair stood up on the back of Katara's neck. Whatever was going on here, she was sure it was something she wasn't going to like… but knew just as surely that she was powerless to stop it.

For what could have been either a few minutes or a few hours, she was left alone, and Katara could not help but remember what Xi Wang had said in the desert, so many years ago: they were giving her time to sweat. Well, it was working. With each passing moment, the icy sense of dread building up in her stomach only got heavier as it twisted her gut into knots.

 _Whatever happens, will happen_ , she reminded herself. _We've already survived so much, far more than we ever could have expected to. If this is the end for me, the least I can do is try to face it with dignity._

In spite of herself, though, she found it difficult to hold onto that resolution when she finally heard the footsteps approaching her cell, and even harder once she caught her first sight of their owner.

The man who entered her cell was one she'd never previously seen in person. Nevertheless, she immediately knew who he was. After all, she'd seen his face plastered across enough posters and statues for it to be permanently burned into her memory.

Her first wild, frantic thought was that he looked like Zuko: an older Zuko, with longer hair, a beard, and no scar, but almost exactly like Zuko nonetheless. Then again, maybe it was only her knowledge of the relationship that allowed her to so quickly see through the cosmetic differences to the true underlying resemblance.

"Ozai," she growled. It was one of the few words she had willingly spoken for the duration of her captivity.

He nodded his head, as if pleased that she had recognized him so quickly, but the smile he bestowed on her was sadistic. "You will address me by my title, girl."

Katara said nothing. She wasn't going to give him even the show of respect; he didn't deserve it.

Though she didn't like to think that she was capable of hatred, if Katara had ever hated anybody, it was this man. Though she hated Yon Rha for what he had done to her mother, every tragedy her family had suffered could still be traced back to _Ozai_ at its source. His war had killed her mother, and separated all of the surviving members of her family. He'd personally murdered her first love, and mutilated one of her dearest friends. And that wasn't even considering what his policies had done to Lien…

It was a pity that Katara was given so little water—there was not enough saliva left in her mouth to properly spit in his face. Instead, she settled for giving him her best glare.

"The guards inform me that you have been incredibly stubborn. _They_ think you're unbreakable, but I know better—and sooner or later, you _will_ learn your place."

He knelt down before her, so that they were eye to eye. "You overestimate your importance if you think we're unwilling to damage you. Waterbenders are only useful to us as healers, so the only parts of your body that need to remain intact are your hands and arms." Almost as if he were caressing a lover, he reached out and laid a hand on the side of her face, brushing her hair back from her ear with his fingers.

Katara froze, unable even to continue glaring defiance. She knew _exactly_ what he was going to do, and was all too aware that she could no more defend herself than she could breathe fire. Nevertheless, she could not help but struggle, thrashing futilely against her bonds as the hand against her face began to heat, but she succeeded only in straining several muscles and scraping a few more raw spots onto her already-chafed wrists and ankles. Even when she tried to turn her head away, Ozai dug the fingers of his free hand into her hair, and yanked her head back toward him so hard that Katara could nearly feel it coming out by its roots, and could do nothing to resist as the hand against her face grew hotter and hotter…

Then, Ozai laughed. All at once, he released his grip on her hair and the hand was gone from her face; as he pulled away, there was nothing she could do to stop the tears that were streaming from her eyes, nothing she could do _period_ but sit there and shake. She was not burned, only shaken—but Ozai's little stunt had driven home just how helpless she currently was, and she could not stop the trembling, or the gasping sobs.

"Not nearly as brave as you pretend to be, I see." He gripped her chin and tilted her head back so she was forced to look at him. "Though one can hardly expect any better, from a kept woman." He tilted her head from side to side, and a look of utmost disgust passed over his face. "Now, I'll ask you one more time: _where is my son?_ "

Within the space of a few seconds, her terrified imagination came up with at least a dozen things that he could do to her, each more horrible than the last, if she refused to answer—but refuse she must. She would have to resist as best she could without Aang's calm center, or Zuko's near-inhuman tolerance for pain.

 _Whatever happens, will happen_ , she reminded herself once more. _I've been terribly injured before this, and survived. If I can give the others even a little bit more of a fighting chance, I will not have suffered in vain._ When she looked back up at Ozai, it was with her eyes clear, her hands steady, and her mouth shut.

Seconds passed, then minutes. Still, there was not a peep of sound in the cell. Finally, Ozai seemed to realize he was not going to wait her out, and let out a snarl of frustration.

"Do not think that your silence will spare my son his fate. I mean to erase this mistake, and start over clean. In the meantime, you _will_ learn obedience."

As he finished speaking, a sadistic grin spread over his face. Then, he reached out once more and laid a hand not on her face, but on her ankle cuffs.

This time, it wasn't just fear that made her scream: within seconds, the metal was glowing red, and Katara could smell burned flesh as her skin was seared. Even after he took his hand away, the manacles remained glowing hot, and there was nothing she could do to get away from the burning fire. How could she have thought that it hurt when Aang had accidentally burned her? That momentary pain was nothing, _nothing_ to the agony that she was feeling now…

"I told you," Ozai said with a smirk from the door of the cell—when had he moved? "We need only your hands. The rest of you is completely expendable. Remember that, the next time you consider defiance."

Then, he was gone, leaving Katara alone in the dark with only her pain for company.

* * *

Her injuries were treated. After all, her feet might have been expendable, but they could not risk an infection that might threaten her life.

Shortly after Ozai left, a couple of guards came back in, bearing a washbasin, ointment, and bandages. One of the guards kept a firm hold on her legs as the cuffs were removed, while another went about cleaning and salving the burns.

They were not sympathetic, and they were not gentle. They were mechanically efficient, going through the motions of treating her injuries with no more thought for her comfort than they would have given to a piece of broken machinery. Right after they clapped the cuffs back on over the bandages, and right before the hood went back onto her head, one of them turned to her and said coldly, "You brought this on yourself, you know."

She had not broken her vow of silence for Ozai; she would not break it now. Telling the guard exactly what she thought of such petty bullying would only be a waste of breath. Instead, she stayed mute as she was once more left alone in the dark.

If telling the passage of time had been difficult before, now it seemed to crawl by, one painful minute after the next until Katara began to wonder whether they'd decided to lock her in here to die of neglect. Then she reminded herself that that was stupid; they wouldn't have wasted the resources to tend to her wounds only to let her slowly dehydrate or starve.

Sure enough, after an indeterminate amount of time had passed, she heard the door to her cell creaking open once more. Katara tensed as the hood was yanked from her head, bracing herself for another round of questioning that would end in more burns or worse, but it was only the usual guards, bringing her daily allotment of water and food.

They acted as if nothing unusual whatsoever had happened the previous day. They gave her water. They fed her. They brought in the chamber pot. Then, they put the hood back over her head and detached her shackles from the wall.

Katara could not hold in a cry of pain as they yanked her to her feet and forced her to walk as if they didn't even know that she was hurt. They did not slow, or readjust the shackles, only told her once more that she had brought it on herself before continuing their relentless march.

By the time the silence of her cell had given way to the evening air of the outside world, Katara had tears running down her face. Though she did her best to silence her sobbing—she didn't want to give the guards the satisfaction—each step was agony, and as much as she wanted to get out of there, right now she could not help but wish that they would just put her back in her cell and let her suffer in peace.

The mere act of putting one foot in front of the other had become so painful that she almost didn't notice when something finally changed.

At first, it was merely a slight slackening of the guards' grip on her arms. Then, however, distant shouting finally penetrated her conscious mind through the hood and the haze of pain, followed by the clanging of a bell.

"This must be it," the guard on her left said. Katara's ears perked up. Maybe this was the chance she'd been waiting for!

"But what about her?" The other guard shook her arm as if she couldn't even hear him. "We have to put her back in her cell!"

"Weren't you paying attention? We don't have _time_ for that!" The first guard sounded as if he were on the verge of panic. "The Phoenix King said _everyone_. What will we tell him if he finds out the alarm went off and we were the only ones who weren't there?"

"What will we tell him if the prisoner escapes?" the second guard hissed back. "Would you rather explain _that_ to the Phoenix King? Because I wouldn't."

"She's not going to escape!" The first alarm bell had now been joined by a cacophony of others, and the guards had to shout to make themselves heard. "That's exactly what all these precautions are for! Besides, this is far more important than losing one prisoner!"

"Fine. But not without making sure." Katara's hands were given a sudden jerk, making her stumble; the shackles chained to some object that she couldn't see before she felt the hot breath of the guard on her ear. "But if you make trouble, girl, it'll be more than your feet that end up getting burned." Then, the guards' running footsteps joined the others that now seemed to be clattering all over the place, headed towards some distant disturbance.

Katara didn't hesitate. As soon as her guards' footsteps had faded away into the general background noise, she acted.

Her arms might have been thoroughly immobilized, but she _could_ still move her fingers. The amount of moisture that she could pull from the air wasn't a lot, but it was enough. Once she had a respectable amount of water at her fingertips, she worked it by feel into the keyhole of the cuffs, where she froze it into ice. She forced herself to breathe slowly as she felt out the lock mechanism, reshaping the ice bit by bit as she worked it around the interior of the hole.

 _Click_. Katara breathed a sigh of relief as the shackles abruptly opened, and she wriggled her wrists free. The next order of business was the hood. Forcing her arms to work in spite of the stiffness that sent spikes of pain shooting from her wrists to her shoulders with every movement, she grabbed a fistful of the hood in one hand and a spike of sharpened ice in the other, and cut the thing from her face.

Thankfully, the sun was almost completely down; otherwise she might have been blinded by the sudden influx of light after spending so much time in complete darkness. As it was, even in the dim illumination she could see quite clearly that she was standing on the flagstones of some sort of prison exercise yard, and she was alone.

Praying to any spirits that she could think of that whatever calamity had distracted the guards would keep them occupied for just a little bit longer, Katara sat and began to work on the ankle cuffs next. This went slightly faster now that she could actually _see_ what she was doing, but even after they clicked open she was still left with a conundrum: there was very little water available, and she was in no shape to fight.

Okay, deep breath. She hadn't gotten this far only to give up now. Moving as quickly as she was able with her injured ankles and stiff limbs, Katara began to walk away from the noise, pulling as much water as she could manage from the air as she went. When her route dead-ended at a wall, she knew what she had to do.

By this point, she had only managed to accumulate a couple of handfuls of water, but a couple of handfuls were all that she needed. When she flicked her wrist, they solidified into a series of ice spikes that flew at the wall and embedded themselves in the stone. With the last of her failing strength, she somehow managed to use her makeshift handholds and footholds to scramble over the top of the wall to her freedom.

* * *

It was almost dawn by the time she finally managed to stagger her way out of the city and into an area that was relatively uninhabited.

Up to this point, Katara had been forcing herself to keep moving on willpower alone, but now her ordeal was finally beginning to catch up to her. She was exhausted, she was hungry, she was thirsty, and the pain was getting worse with every step. If she didn't want to collapse right there in the open, she was going to have to find a safe place to sleep, and soon.

She barely managed to crawl into a grove of trees before the last of her strength gave out, and unconsciousness took her.

It was a rough night. By this point Katara had spent so many night struggling to sleep while literally chained to a wall or a chair that she was actually having trouble doing it the normal way now. Several times she was jolted out of sleep as her entire body gave a massive jerk; she woke with her heart racing and her fists clenched against enemies that weren't there, and it took her several minutes to calm down and remember where she was.

Finally, around noon, it was no longer possible for her to ignore the thirst. When Katara tried to push herself to her feet, though, she could manage only a few wobbly steps before her legs gave out on her; whatever it was that had kept her going last night, it seemed as if she had finally reached her limit. Unable to do anything else, she pulled more moisture directly out of the air, and brought her fingers to her mouth to suck on the ice as she struggled to pull her scattered, fuzzy thoughts together enough to plan what she was going to do next.

She needed food and water, she needed medicine and time to heal, and she needed to get out of this ratty prison uniform—not necessarily in that order. In the longer term, she needed to find out where Zuko and Lien were, let them know that she had gotten out, and make plans to reunite with them. Because she was alone for the moment and because she didn't have the energy to do anything else, Katara folded her stiff legs into a sitting position as best as she was able, closed her eyes, and let herself slip into the Spirit World.

Once again, a sense of profound relief washed over her as the various aches and pains vanished, and her limbs regained their strength. Even so, though, she knew that she could not stay here long: leaving her body alone and vulnerable while she was alone and so weak was too great a risk.

"Huu!" she called as she splashed through the near-freezing, grass-choked water. To her relief, she saw him giving her a wave as his spirit-tree came into view.

"Katara," he greeted her warmly. "What brings you here today?"

"Please," she panted, skidding to a halt in front of him. "I don't have much time. Have you seen Lien recently?"

He nodded, his face acquiring a more solemn expression. "Indeed I have. She's been coming here nice and regular, you know. Always asking about you."

Guilt twisted in the pit of her stomach. True, she had cut off all contact in order to _protect_ Lien, to avoid giving false hope and prevent them from coming after her, but that still didn't change the fact that she'd willingly abandoned the girl. "Well, if she comes here again," she replied, fighting to keep her voice level, "could you tell her I'm out of prison and ask her where she and Zuko are right now? I'd like to catch up with them again."

"Will do." Even as he gave her his easy response, however, Huu was looking down at her with concern. "You take care, okay?"

"That's not always easy," she admitted. "But I promise, I'll try."

* * *

It admittedly wasn't the brightest idea that she'd ever had… but Katara felt that if she had to wear the ratty prison uniform for even one second longer, she would spontaneously combust from all of the filth and the mosquito-lice that were crawling around inside it. The second she returned to her body, she stripped down to her underwear and shoved the uniform under the nearest available pile of leaves. It blended so well with the dead foliage that she wouldn't have even been able to see it if she hadn't already known it was there.

The next thing she did was take a look at the burns on her ankles. Even before she got to the burns themselves, what she saw wasn't encouraging: she'd dragged herself through a whole lot of dirt during her escape, leaving the formerly white gauze stained a filthy brown color, and her only options for replacing it were tearing strips from either the filthy, mosquito-lice-ridden prison uniform or her equally filthy, sweat-stained undergarments. When she gingerly unwound the bandages, it got even worse: though the burns weren't oozing or turning unnatural colors and she hadn't developed a fever (yet), even the unburned skin on her ankles was reddened and warm to the touch, and she had only a handful or so of clean water at a time, and no more access to salve or antiseptics than she had to clean bandages.

Resolved to do whatever she _could_ do, Katara took what little water she'd managed to pull from the air, and pressed it to her ankle… only for a spike of pain to shoot through her head when she attempted to use her healing powers. The glow that had briefly infused the water flickered and died: it seemed that she had no more reserves left to draw on, and even healing herself was now beyond her.

In the end, she used the water to clean the burns as best she could, and then simply left them as they were: at this point, better exposed to open air than wrapped in a dirty bandage. Even that tiny bit of exertion ended with her slumped on the ground, exhausted.

She still needed food, and clothes, but she had no money, and a woman walking around in her underwear tended to attract attention—and putting the prison uniform back on would be even _worse_. That left her only the option of sneaking back into town under cover of darkness, and stealing something—but even after a full day's worth of rest, doing nothing but pulling water from the air and sucking the ice from her fingers to slake her thirst, when she pulled herself up at sunset and tried to walk, she didn't manage to get more than a few paces from the grove before finding herself on her hands and knees. Grunting, she forced herself back onto her feet on willpower alone, only to collapse again a few steps later.

It seemed as if her prolonged captivity, coupled with restricted movements, inadequate and poor quality food, and recent injury, had cost her most of her physical strength. Even though she'd managed to get through the previous night running on fear and willpower alone, it seemed that she'd finally used the last drop of her already severely-depleted energy, and her body simply had nothing left to give. She had successfully escaped Fire Nation prison, only to face death by starvation or exposure in sight of freedom.

 _Better to die free than live a slave_ , was the last thought she managed before her eyes slipped closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really did try to cut this whole story down to fourteen chapters, but try as I might, I just couldn't manage to find those last two chapters that could be merged in a way that made sense. So, have a Part 1 and a Part 2. That's not cheating, right?


	11. Surrender, Part 2

Zuko should have been back by now.

It didn't matter what he'd said about waiting until the food ran out, or about the possibility that this might take a while: he should have been back. The sun had set, and it had risen again, and there was still no sign of him, and Lien knew in her gut that something had gone terribly, horribly wrong.

With Katara and Zuko both gone, there was only one person left she could turn to for comfort or advice. "Aang?" she whispered, and he appeared before her. She did not think it was a good sign that he looked just as uneasy as she felt.

"I know," he said before Lien could even open her mouth. "I'm worried too."

"What should we do?"

For a moment, Aang gazed blankly out at the horizon, before turning back to her. "You're not going to like it, but… I think that maybe you should do what Zuko says.

"I know how you feel," he continued. "I know that the last time I was in your position, I was willing to move heaven and earth for Katara's sake, no questions asked… but sometimes, looking at the way that things turned out, I can't help but wonder if I made a horrible mistake."

"What do you mean?" Her voice came out in a whisper.

"I'd been learning to open my chakras so I could control the Avatar State. The guru who was teaching me warned me that this wasn't something that could be stopped once it was started, and at the time, I didn't think that would be a problem. Then, though, I learned that the last thing I had to do to complete the process was to let go of all of my earthly attachments—the people I cared about, the people I _loved_. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Slowly, Lien nodded. Let go of her earthly attachments? Not _care_ about the people in her life? She'd tried that once, and it had ended horribly.

"When I tried," Aang continued quietly, "I got a vision of Katara in some sort of trouble. In that moment, I was forced to make a choice: the Avatar State, or Katara. I chose Katara. Except when I got there, I ended up walking straight into a trap. Instead of rescuing Katara, I ended up with my back shot full of lightning, and _she_ was the one who ended up having to save _me_." He turned around and lifted up his shirt, to show her the scar. It was even worse than the one that Zuko had on his chest.

"I was in a coma for two weeks," he continued after turning back around. "It took me several _more_ weeks to recover from my injuries, and I didn't recover the Avatar State at all. That was over a month during which I could have been training, or helping my allies. Instead, I spent it in bed, being healed by Katara and blaming myself for being so helpless. Though I can't say I've ever regretted caring for Katara… even if I hadn't come to save her, she probably would have been fine. Maybe, if I'd had more faith in Katara's ability to take care of herself, this never would have happened and I'd have been able to defeat Ozai when the time came.

"I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, and I'm sorry, Lien, but… sometimes, your most important job as the Avatar is making sure that you can _do_ your job, and sometimes, that means knowing when you have to let go and look out for yourself. I know it's hard," Aang continued quietly. "But here's something I learned from my earthbending teacher: you can't always just rush in, no matter how much you might want to. Sometimes, the best way to fight is to listen, and wait."

* * *

Lien felt as if she would end up having a breakdown if she did nothing but sit around and wait. So, she decided to see if she could accomplish anything by listening.

The more practice she'd had, the easier it had become to navigate the Spirit World. It only took her a few minutes to find Huu's oasis.

"Lien!" he greeted as she dragged her feet through the water. "I was hoping you'd show up. I've got good news!"

At that, she hurried to get to him, splashing water up to her armpits in her haste to reach his tree. "Good news?" she echoed as the spirits fluttered around her. "Huu, what is it?"

"Katara broke herself out of prison," he said, his eyes crinkling, "and wants to know where you are."

"She's out?" Lien could hardly contain her excitement. "Huu, where is she?"

"She didn't say." Huu smiled. "But, if you keep checking in, I'm sure I can find out the next time I see her."

"Thank you, Huu! Tell her we're camping out on the northern tip of Crescent Island." Lien gave him a deep bow before hurrying back to her body.

When she blinked awake, it was finally full night. She ate a little bit of the food before trying to go to sleep, but she could not close her eyes, and ended up jumping to her feet and pacing until the night was nearly halfway over.

The next morning, Zuko was still not back.

Lien's happiness at learning that Katara was okay was promptly diluted by yet another spike of worry over Zuko's fate. Where _was_ he? If Katara had already gotten out on her own, then there was no _reason_ for him to still be out rescuing her… unless, that was, something had happened to him as well.

Once again, she did not want to simply wait and worry, so once again, she did the only thing she could do: it had been long enough by now that Katara might have talked to Huu.

She had, and the normally laid-back and easygoing man now wore an expression that was exceedingly grave. "She was mad as a buzzard-wasp, after I passed on that the two of you had decided to come after her. She also said that she can't come to you—you'll have to send Zuko to go get her. Under no circumstances, she said, are you to try it yourself."

Lien didn't tell him that Zuko was also missing. Instead, she asked Huu for Katara's location.

"She doesn't know for sure. The only thing she could tell me was that she was being kept in the prison in the capital city, and that she ran north. She shouldn't be more than a night's walk away." Lien thanked him, and returned to her body.

Upon coming to on the cold floor of the cave, Lien bit her lip. Even though she had no details, it was clear that Katara needed help, and Lien wanted to help her… but everyone—Zuko, and Aang, and now Katara herself—was telling her that right now, her primary duty as the Avatar was to save herself now rather than risk the world later.

She ought to just do what everyone else was telling her to: sit tight. Don't take risks. Wait out the last of the food supply, and if Zuko and Katara still hadn't come back by then, pay her passage on a ship back to the Earth Kingdom and get in touch with Nori and Xi Wang. Finish learning the elements. Master the Avatar State. Prepare to confront Ozai. The balance of the world _had_ to come before the lives of a few individuals—that was the right decision.

…if that was the right thing to do, though, then why did it feel so wrong?

She could go back to Huu, and explain the situation properly. She had no doubt that if she did, and he passed it on to Katara, then Katara would say the same thing as before: save herself. That Lien was worth far, far more than Katara was. If Lien left her behind, even at the expense of Katara's life, Katara would understand.

Lien got up, and grabbed a traveling bag.

Into it, she stuffed some food, all of the money, her waterskin, and as many blankets as would fit. Most of her supplies, she left in the cave; she didn't want Zuko to come back and think she'd abandoned the place. Having made all the preparations it was possible to make, she took one last look back at the cave before stepping resolutely out into the world.

Before he had left, Zuko had showed her a map, and made her memorize their location. She kept the map in her hand as she searched, making note of the landmarks and of the position of the sun as she had been taught: she knew exactly where she was. As she expanded her search into an ever wider radius, however, Lien began to realize that she had only the vaguest idea of where _Katara_ might be: as it turned out, "within a day's walk north of the prison" covered a _lot_ of space.

 _It's okay, it's okay,_ think _._ She looked again at the map. If she couldn't reach them on her own, she couldn't have gotten very far from the prison, either. Lien bit her lip, and narrowed her search.

When the sun was nearly down and she _still_ had not found Katara, Lien began to panic. Maybe the others had been right; what was the point in risking herself if she couldn't even _help_ anybody? Her breathing grew rapid, and darkness began to gather at the edges of her vision. What was she even _doing_ here? What could she hope to—

 _Listen, and wait._ She took a deep breath, kicked off one shoe, and touched her bare foot to the Earth.

Nothing. She continued her circle around the prison, selected another spot, and tried again. Nothing. Okay, don't panic; she'd only just started. She moved, listened, moved, listened, moved, listened, then…

 _There_. A heartbeat. Her own heart pounding, Lien made her way toward it—maybe it was Katara, and maybe it wasn't, but so far, it was the only lead she had.

Even after hurrying to the location where she'd felt the telltale pulse of life, it took her a moment to even find the body that was sprawled out atop the carpet of leaves… and a few seconds more for her to recognize it as Katara.

She had burrowed partway underneath the leaves as if using them as a blanket, her skin smeared head to toe with dirt and potentially worse things. Her hair was matted and filthy. She stank. For some unknown reason, she wore only her underwear, and she had grown painfully skinny compared to the Katara that Lien remembered—her arms were matchsticks, Lien could count every rib, and see the harsh jutting of her hipbones and shoulder blades.

"Katara!" she cried, rushing over. "Katara, what happened?"

With a groan, Katara lifted her head. She blinked a couple of times, as if not entirely sure where she was, before her eyes widened and she tried to push herself to her feet, only for her arms to tremble and give out before she'd even fully straightened her elbows. "Lien, what are you _doing_ here?"

"I… I had to." Without even thinking about it, she lowered herself to the ground next to Katara, water gathering around her hands. "Where are you hurt?"

"I'm not. I mean, not badly. I…" She squeezed her eyes shut, and pressed a hand to her forehead. Lien's eyes had already gone to the reddened, burned skin around her ankles.

For a moment, there was silence as Lien pressed water-coated hands to the burns. Despite Katara's words, they were worse than she was pretending they were, their edges disturbingly regular. "What did they _do_ to you?" Lien asked in horror.

"That doesn't matter." Giving up on the possibility of standing, she rolled onto her side, so they could look at each other face to face. "Lien, where's Zuko?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

Lien bit her lip. "He left more than a day ago to try to save you," she explained. "He… hasn't come back yet."

Immediately, Katara tried once more to push herself to her feet, in the process pulling her ankles out of Lien's hands, but she collapsed again after only a few seconds.

Then, she spat out a long string of words whose meaning Lien didn't know, and wasn't sure she wanted to, followed immediately by, "You didn't hear that."

By this point, Lien had slumped to the ground as well, her knees shaking too hard to hold her weight. "What are we going to _do?_ "

Katara grimaced. "First, we're going to find out what happened to Zuko. Then, I'm going to kill him."

* * *

The next morning, Lien found herself walking through the market.

" _I really hate to ask this. But if I want to get better in time to save Zuko, I'm going to need your help._ "

The first part was easy. All of the food she'd brought, she'd left with Katara, and with two people eating it, it wasn't going to last very long. Thankfully, all she had to do was browse through the market and fill her bag with whatever she could find to replenish it: fruits, vegetables, mochi, salted meat, whatever she could get that wouldn't spoil and didn't need to be cooked before it was eaten.

" _Okay, listen. Do you have money? Yes? Good. Because if I'm going to be able to move somewhere safer, I'm going to need some good food to regain my strength, and I'm going to need something to wear that doesn't scream 'I just escaped from prison!' Do you think you can do that?_ "

Now came the hard part.

" _Now remember, this is very important:_ don't steal _. It'll be a complete disaster if you get caught. If you don't have enough money to buy something, we'll just have to do without it until I'm back on my feet._ "

The clothing store was a little out of the way of the market, with bright wares hanging in prominent display. Lien swallowed hard, and stepped inside.

Immediately she was overwhelmed by the sheer _volume_ of choices available. Hanging inside of the store were racks upon racks of cloth. All red, sometimes a little bit of black, but otherwise no other colors available.

Throughout most of her life, Lien had had access to two or three outfits at most. How was she supposed to _choose?_

"What can I do for you?" An old woman approached her, pushing her way through the folds of hanging cloth.

"I… I…"

"Well, speak up, girl! I don't have all day!"

"I… I was looking for… there'ssomethingIneedtobuy…"

"What was that?"

Lien ducked her head, and mumbled something whose meaning even _she_ couldn't be sure of.

The old woman, having apparently had enough, waved a hand at her dismissively before walking off with an impatient huff. Lien cringed, her shoulders hunching up nearly to her ears.

After a few more minutes of standing there, however, she took a deep breath and slowly walked into the shop despite the shaking of her hands. She had a job to do, and Katara's life (and possibly Zuko's as well) depended on her doing it right. She could _not_ walk away empty-handed.

As she eyed this outfit and that, not having any idea what she was looking for but not wanting to keep standing there doing _nothing_ all the same, she rehearsed over and over again what she was going to say if (when) the old woman approached her again. She was sure she was going to look so _stupid—_ most people did this all the time, and here she was fumbling around without a clue.

She swallowed, and reminded herself once again that until Lien helped her, Katara was going to be lying in the dirt with nothing but stale food to eat and nothing but her underwear to wear. So _what_ if Lien made herself look stupid, in comparison to that?

"Well," the shopkeeper said as she approached. "Are you finally ready to explain what you want and stop wasting my time?"

Still stammering, but at least _mostly_ able to articulate what she wanted to say, Lien held out her handful of coins. "Wh-what can I get for this?"

Clothing, as it turned out, was _expensive_. Even the cheapest outfit she could get cost her all but two coins of her money—and that wasn't even the last thing she needed.

Still, she had to try. When she entered the apothecary, the shopkeeper told her that he did indeed have the burn ointment, antiseptics, and bandages that she needed… but when he saw what was in her purse, he regretfully shook his head.

"I don't know what the going rate was wherever you came from, but I'm afraid that won't buy you much here."

"Please!" Lien begged. "It's… it's for my mother."

Again, the shopkeeper shook his head. "Sorry, kid, but I've got a mother too. I wish I could help you, but my family's got to eat, and I can't just go around giving away my wares for free." He paused. "Unless…"

Immediately, Lien's head snapped up. "Unless…?"

He gave her a speculative look, thoughtfully stroking his beard. "I don't suppose that you can firebend?"

* * *

No more than five minutes later, Lien found herself sitting cross-legged in the back room of the shop with a large clay jar cupped between her hands.

"My usual assistant came down with a bad case of dragon fever," the shopkeeper had explained as he'd led her through the shop. "It'll be at least a week before he's on his feet again, and that's a week where I won't be able to get any new medicines made without fiddling around with a brazier." He'd hefted down one of the ceramic jars, and peeled away the wax seal to show her an opaque white gel. "That needs to be heated just until melting, no hotter, and it needs to be _kept_ that way until it turns clear. If you can do that, and do it _right_ , I'll let you take some of it home, along with whatever other supplies you need."

Lien, not seeing that she had any other option, had only nodded mutely. Left alone in the back room, staring down at the jar in her hands, she let out a sigh.

What if she messed it up? If she got it right, she would get medicine, but if she couldn't do it… if she ruined this batch of ointment, she'd have nothing, and the shopkeeper might make her stay behind and do _more_ work to make up for the money she'd lost him.

No choice. She had to do it. As she rested her hands on the sides of the jar, Zuko's voice came back to her, as if from a very great distance:

" _Remember, firebending comes from the breath, and firebending is powered by the Sun. It isn't just pain and destruction: the Sun gives us light, and warmth. It helps the plants to grow. None of us would be here without it._ "

Slowly, ever so slowly, she began to channel heat through the palms of her hands.

She had expected it to be difficult, to keep the contents of the jar at a perfectly steady temperature. It certainly wasn't _easy—_ maintaining such a precise level of heat required constant concentration. Once she noticed the white gel beginning to liquefy, however, she took note of exactly how hot her hands were, and then put all of her focus into _keeping_ them that way.

She was working entirely by feel: there was nothing external, save the state of the ointment, that she could use to measure the temperature. With any other element, you could place it precisely where you wanted it and it would _stay_ that way unless something else came along to move it, or at least behave in a way that made _sense_ , like water flowing downhill. This was more like trying to contain a small animal that she held in her hands: fire was alive, and it wanted to _burn_ , and required constant attention to keep it under control.

It was difficult to tell exactly how long she sat there. Long enough for her legs to grow stiff, and her shoulders to cramp. All she knew was that the square of sunlight on the wall had moved from one side of the room to the other by the time that she blinked, and realized that clear tendrils were beginning to work their way through the formerly-opaque ointment.

The shopkeeper came back to check on her just as the last wisps of white had finally faded out to clear. When Lien released the jar and slumped in exhaustion, he dipped in a finger and brought it to his nose to take a sniff.

"Is… is it okay?" she asked, peering up at him from her spot on the floor; her legs were a little too wobbly for her to want to try standing just yet.

"Perfect." He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I honestly didn't think you'd be able to do it—I was expecting you to ruin it, or get bored and run off after five minutes. But, a deal's a deal, and I'd say you've earned everything you asked for." He scooped some of the ointment into a much smaller jar, which he sealed with wax before handing it over, along with a roll of bandages and another sealed jar which he assured her contained antiseptic. "Hardly anyone these days seems to care about control. I don't know who taught you firebending, but give that person my compliments."

"It was my father," she said, and a jolt shot through her stomach at the reminder that Zuko was still missing.

The shopkeeper nodded his approval. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to come back tomorrow? I'm going to need some help until my assistant is well again, and those medicines won't make themselves."

"I… I need to ask my mother," Lien said, startled by the offer. They needed information and supplies, but coming into the city was dangerous, and she didn't know whether Katara would approve of what she'd done—much less of her doing it again.

"That's fair. Well, you tell your mother that as long as you're filling in for my usual assistant, I'll pay you the same that he earns, and give you a good recommendation once you're ready to start looking for a more permanent job. Think about it."

He was just showing Lien out when a poster than had been hung on a nearby wall caught her eye. Though she'd only begun reading it out of a casual interest, she abruptly froze as she realized exactly what it said.

Seeing what she was looking at, the shopkeeper scowled in distaste. "Executions may be necessary, but there's no good reason to make such a _spectacle_ of it." He tore the poster from the wall before Lien could finish reading it, and tossed it to the ground. "You want my advice? Stay home the day before the solstice. No one your age should be watching someone burned alive."

In response, Lien could only nod mutely. She waited until they parted ways before she doubled back, grabbed the crumpled piece of paper, stuffed it into her bag, and then ran as fast as her legs would carry her back to Katara's hiding place to share what she'd just learned.

The good news was that she now knew where Zuko was. The bad news was that he was about to die a horrible death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've done a lot of back-and-forth with myself over what Aang's take would be on everything that's happened, and what sort of advice he'd give to Lien. I think it's important to avoid absolutisms or portray his decision not to kill Ozai as objectively right or wrong, because this is a complicated situation with no easy answers. I do think it's in-character for him to second-guess that choice, because as opposed to canon where everything ultimately worked out, in this time the outcome wasn't nearly so lucky, and this would be far from the first time that Aang has blamed himself for not being able to save other people. (Not to mention, it also seems to be a longstanding tradition for past Avatars to second-guess themselves, and to overcompensate for their own mistakes in their advice to the next generation - Roku did it with Aang, and now Aang is doing it with Lien.)


	12. Coming to Terms

When Zuko had planned his break-in to free Katara from the Fire Nation prison, he'd been expecting resistance. He'd even been expecting a trap. What he _hadn't_ been expecting was to actually be _caught_. That had been his mistake, though: relying on stealth, and not anticipating the alarm that had immediately filled the prison with a cacophony of clanging bells. In the end, not only had he failed to rescue Katara, he hadn't even managed to fight his _own_ way out: they guards had overwhelmed him through sheer force of numbers.

Now, he was languishing in a prison cell of his own, with his wrists and ankles chained together, a metal mask over his face, and a man he'd hoped never to see again glaring down at him with an expression of utmost disgust.

"I must admit, I underestimated you." Ozai shook his head from the other side of the bars. "I had my doubts as to whether even you would sink so low as to exchange your own life for that of a kept woman—and a waterbender at that."

" _Where is she?_ " Zuko shouted, his voice coming out muffled. All that, and not only had he gotten himself captured, Katara was still languishing away in a similar cell or worse…

"The only person you _ought_ to be worrying about is yourself." Ozai idly twitched his fingers, and a flame sprang to life in his palm.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ozai took his eyes from the flame he was playing with, and flicked his eyes to look at Zuko from the edge of his vision—never directly, never doing him the courtesy of acknowledging his son's existence as worthy of his full attention. "What it means, _son_ , is that you are a mistake—one I intend to rectify at first opportunity. It's time to start over my rule of this nation with a clean slate, and the likes of you have no part in that future."

"So why don't you just do it now?" Zuko demanded, yanking at his chains, not unaware of the irony. "I'm in your power—or are you too much of a coward?"

Ozai snarled. "You overestimate your importance if you think that your weakness has any bearing on my plans." He leaned in close, the handful of flames flaring ever higher in his palm, and in spite of himself, Zuko cringed. "What this is about is what most benefits _me_ , and right now, what benefits me is that as many people as possible know the fate that awaits a traitor."

It sounded like he was going to be executed, then—publicly, and with as much spectacle as possible. Zuko had gotten into a lot of bad situations over the course of his life, but… this was pretty bad.

"Do you really have nothing to say for yourself, Prince Zuko?" Ozai had not backed down, and now the two of them were holding each other's gazes in an intense glare, neither one willing to be the first to break eye contact. "Your death may be inevitable, but it is not too late to regain your honor. If you were to publicly renounce your treason—"

"I'll renounce nothing! I'm _through_ cowering to you!"

Ozai pulled away then, his eyebrows drawing down into a stormy frown as his mouth twisted into a scowl. "So be it." He turned on his heel. Just outside the cell door, however, he turned and looked back. "You'll live to regret that choice—but not for very long." Then, the door clanged shut behind him and he was gone, leaving Zuko alone in the dark.

* * *

Zuko had never had much luck to begin with, and right now, it looked as if his luck had finally run out. He knew that realistically, he probably wasn't going to come out of this alive—but that didn't mean he had to make things easy for his captors.

The first time a guard came in to feed him, Zuko breathed a jet of fire into the man's face the second the mask was off. Though the guard did manage to block in time to avoid being hurt, he was forced to drop his keys in order to get this hand up in time, and Zuko, who'd been waiting for exactly that moment, managed to catch the key ring in his teeth.

That was as far as he got before the guard kicked him in the ribs with a steel-toed boot.

Zuko paid dearly for his moment of defiance when the first guard's shouts for backup brought several more guards running, most of whom decided to join in on the beating. It was only broken up when the warden came back to see what the ruckus was and ordered them to lay off, with the reminder that even a condemned man still needed to go to his execution _alive_.

When he heard that, Zuko actually _laughed_ , though the spike of pain that shot through his side forced him to stop even before the warden kicked him again.

With so many guards watching him all at once, he was left with no options but to take his dinner quietly while the warden stood over him, baton in hand. As soon as he was finished, they put the mask back on, and when Zuko resisted, he was rewarded with a blow to the stomach for his troubles.

Now, after several minutes (or possibly even hours) spent curled into a fetal ball on the floor of his cell, Zuko finally decided it was time to reassess his situation, backed himself up against the wall, and forced himself as upright as he could manage with the restraints. Once he was in at least a rough approximation of a sitting position, he prodded his torso as best he could with his bound hands, and hissed at the spike of pain that knifed into his side. Broken ribs, then—probably more than one. They needn't even have bothered with the mask—his bending would be severely hampered if he couldn't draw a deep breath.

The warden had already inadvertently confirmed what Zuko had already guessed: his impending execution was to be a public spectacle. While Ozai had never had any qualms about _hurting_ him, he'd probably have the guards' hides if they let Zuko die early.

True, if it meant taking another beating like this one, he wasn't looking forward to it—but if it came down to a choice of trying and failing or not trying at all, he'd rather die trying to escape than go to the slaughter with the knowledge that he _could_ have made more of an effort and hadn't.

It was time to make Ozai regret that they'd ever caught him.

* * *

The next morning, Zuko took his breakfast quietly. They _were_ still giving him food and water, albeit brought in by a different guard than the one he'd attacked the night before.

He made no trouble throughout the rest of the day either, hoping to lull the guards into thinking that he'd been cowed. His opportunity came when one of the crueler guards, who'd only stopped kicking him when the warden had physically pulled her back, came into the cell with a glass of water and a smirk on her face.

"Not so high and might now, are we, Your Highness?" Then, she gave Zuko yet another kick in his already-abused ribs.

It wasn't even that hard of a kick, but coming on top of the injuries he already had, it was still bad enough to make him double over in pain, momentarily grasping at her legs for support before she shoved him off. "You'd… get along with my sister," he gasped out.

"Is that a _threat_ , traitor?"

In answer, Zuko barked out a laugh. He was hardly in a position to be threatening anyone right now.

Unfortunately for him, the guard only seemed to take that as provocation. "You think this is _funny?_ " she demanded, yanking his head up by the hair. Far from her earlier smirk, she was now looking at him with an expression of utmost disgust. "It wasn't enough for you to murder your sister, but now you dare mock her death as well?"

Zuko was no longer laughing.

" _Murdered?_ " His voice came out in a whisper.

"Don't bother playing dumb. The whole Fire Nation already knows the story." If anything, the guard's expression of disgust had deepened. "You just couldn't stand that the Phoenix King chose your younger sister as his heir instead of you, so you slunk back into the palace on the day of her coronation, like a dog, and cut her down in her moment of triumph—in the back, like a coward." She dropped the bowl of food in front of him; at least half of its contents splattered all over the floor. "Tell me, traitor: did you really think you'd get away with it?"

Zuko was far too stunned to answer, not even when she kicked him in the ribs again. Clearly, though, she wasn't expecting an answer, because after that, she leaned against the wall and pointed to the food she'd dropped. "Eat, before I change my mind."

She hadn't bothered to unbind his hands, much less give him a spoon—which had probably been an intentional act of humiliation. Still, Zuko did his best to get the bowl up onto his forearms without spilling any more of its contents, and then to tip it toward his mouth enough to actually _swallow_ the disgusting slop—if he was going to get out of this, then he was going to need to keep up his strength.

He at least managed to mostly empty the bowl (spilling at least half of what was left of the food onto his face and down his front despite his best efforts) before the guard slapped it out of his hands, locked the mask back onto his face, and left. At this point, though, he barely even noticed the humiliation: he could only slump back against the wall, and think about what she had told him.

The accusation that he'd murdered his sister in a dishonorable sneak attack was, of course, false—for one thing, he'd challenged Azula fairly, in a time-honored Agni Kai. _She_ was the one who'd cheated, attacking Katara even after the latter had agreed to stay out of the fight. For another, the last time he'd seen his sister, she'd still been alive. Even if she had died since then, it certainly hadn't been by _his_ hand.

 _But what if it was?_ a little voice inside of him whispered. _You left her in the hands of strangers, with no idea of whether or not they could properly deal with her. What if she became too much for the White Lotus to handle, even without her bending? If they had no choice… if it came down to a question of her life, or theirs… or even if someone just decided they didn't want to deal with her anymore… you might not have personally struck the finishing blow, but if that's the way it happened, then you might as well have._

He needed to stop it, he told himself, the opposing voice in his head sounding remarkably like Katara's. First of all, propaganda rarely if ever had any relationship to the truth; he didn't _know_ that Azula had been killed—and even if she had, there was nothing he could do about it right now. _If_ he survived, and managed to claim the throne, then one of the first things he was going to prioritize was finding out what had happened to his sister—but if he wanted to get to that point, the first thing he needed to do was _survive_ , and if he wanted to do that, he needed to escape.

As he felt his inner fire wane along with the setting Sun, Zuko took one last look at the object that was tucked into his sleeve: the guard's boot knife, which he'd managed to grab as he'd momentarily clutched her legs, and which he'd quickly tucked beneath the folds of his prison uniform as he'd doubled over in pain. If he was going to make a break for it, it was best to wait until he had the advantage of sleepy guards and low light, and he needed to do it _before_ the missing knife was discovered.

It was now or never.

* * *

First, he turned his back to the door. Then, he let the knife fall from its hiding place.

It was a tense few minutes, gripping the knife in his fingers and getting the right angle to pick the lock on his mask by feel, without also cutting his own head open. It was tenser yet, holding the hilt of the knife between his teeth to pick the locks on his manacles. Once his hands were free, though, it was the work of seconds to get the ankle cuffs off as well. After kicking off the last of the shackles, Zuko pushed himself to his feet and got to work on the cell door. It creaked slightly as it swung open, and he cringed at the noise, but after a few moments had passed and no guards came running, it seemed clear that no one had heard.

What now? Zuko was pretty sure that he could still run, and he could _probably_ still fight if necessary, but his injuries were going to make it much more difficult to hold his own. If he wanted to be successful, then he was going to have to be sneaky.

After removing his shoes to avoid making noise with his footfalls, he set off down the hallway, pausing to listen at every corner. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings, but thankfully, this was a prison he'd visited often before his second exile, and he knew the layout well.

He managed to make it out of the maximum security wing and into the exercise yard with no on the wiser. It was there, however, that his escape was finally noticed.

The nighttime tranquility was shattered by the clanging of an alarm bell, and the exercise yard lit up in a matter of seconds as the firebenders among the guards ignited all the outdoor torches at once. Abandoning all precaution and forcing himself to ignore the pain in his ribs, Zuko broke into a sprint.

He hadn't planned this part of his escape, and was just running in whichever direction seemed to have the fewest guards and the least light: which, in this case, just so happened to be the back wall. When he actually came within sight of it, however, Zuko realized _why_ there were fewer guards.

The wall was almost completely sheer. There was no way anyone was getting a handhold on that without having either earthbending abilities or a whole lot of sharp blades to _make_ them—and Zuko had only one blade, and no time. He was as good as trapped.

Then, however, he saw them: a series of indentations scored into the wall, as if some lucky prisoner before him had tried to escape the same way and done a better job of planning ahead. _Never give up without a fight_ , Zuko thought, wedged his fingers into the nearest indentation, and began to climb.

He was nearly to the top when his luck ran out.

At first, there was no pain: he only felt the impact somewhere midway down his leg. The second the unseen object struck him, though, his leg gave out on him, leaving him hanging from the wall by only his fingertips. Risking a look down to see what had happened, Zuko saw the shaft of an arrow sticking out through the back of his knee.

No. No, he was _so close—_ but he wasn't willing to count himself defeated just yet. Letting go with one of his hands, he grasped the knife he'd stolen in the other and reached down to cut the head from the arrow that was currently pinning him to the wall. The palms of both hands were slick with sweat, making him fear that at any moment he would either lose his grip on the wall, or drop the knife. Somehow, however, he managed to successfully finish cutting through the shaft… just in time for the second arrow to come flying at him out of the darkness.

Unlike the first arrow, this one only grazed him… but it grazed him on the hand with which he was gripping the wall, and even a shallow cut was sufficient to make him lose his grip. A spasm went through his fingers, and suddenly Zuko found himself falling, his impact with the ground below as inevitable as his impending execution.

* * *

The next thing he knew, he was back in his prison cell.

 _Now_ he felt the pain, throbbing all down to his side to congeal into a pulsing red agony in his arm, knee, and hip. Turning his head to take a look, Zuko saw that the arrow had been removed and the wound crudely bandaged, though whoever had treated seemed to have just yanked out the arrow without a care for causing _more_ damage than it had already done going in. After all, he was going to his execution in a few days, he thought bitterly; why _should_ anyone care whether his injuries healed right?

As to where the additional injuries had come from, he could only vaguely recall what had happened after his fall, though it was easy enough to deduce that he'd landed very badly. He remembered slipping, remembered falling, remembered coming down hard on his side. He didn't remember the moment he'd been recaptured, or when his injuries had been treated (for a certain value of "treated", that was). He must have passed out shortly after hitting the ground.

Experimentally, he tried to move his arm, and was rewarded for his troubles by a stabbing white-hot pain that shot from his wrist all the way up to his shoulder. When he tried to turn over to see how badly it was broken, the jolts of pain took it as an invitation to extend into his chest, forcing him into a battle for every breath of air. His other arm was slightly more cooperative, but his shoulder still gave off a dull ache that got progressively worse every time he tried to move it. He hadn't been restrained this time, but that no longer mattered; in this condition, he wasn't even getting to the chamber pot under his own power, much less making an escape.

"I gave you the chance to make this easy on yourself. You could have died with dignity. Now, you will have to be carried to your own execution."

It spoke to just how badly he was hurt that he hadn't noticed Ozai standing there for the past several minutes. The man had always had a limited range of expressions when looking at Zuko: indifference if he was lucky, disappointment if he wasn't. Right now he was wearing the latter.

"You mean, you gave me the chance to make it easier on _you_. The way that I see it, I'm going to burn either way, so it doesn't much matter whether I have to be carried or dragged."

Ozai's features pulled down into the final and worst expression: disgust. "So be it. I look forward to hearing your screams."

He turned to leave. Zuko was tired of playing this game, but he still had one thing left to say:

"I'm not afraid of you anymore."

Ozai's shoulders stiffened, but if he replied, Zuko was unconscious again before he could hear it.

* * *

The next several days passed in a haze.

He was not offered painkillers, and his injuries were given no further treatment—after all, why waste medicine on a dead man? While the guards did continue to bring him food and water, he had no appetite to speak of, and most of the time left it completely untouched.

There were no more escape attempts. Even if he were physically capable, the only thing it could accomplish at this point was provoke the guards into killing him prematurely—and even though it might save him some pain later, he wasn't going to give Ozai the satisfaction.

He had long ago lost track of the passage of time, so he couldn't be sure whether it had been days or weeks before something changed. All he knew was that one morning, a pair of guards came to his cell not with breakfast, but with a fresh set of chains.

"Rise and shine, Highness," the first guard taunted, with far too much cheer for the occasion at hand. "Be sure to enjoy the sunrise; it'll be the last one you ever—"

He was cut off abruptly when his partner elbowed him in the gut and motioned for him to get on with it.

Zuko was still unable even to get up, much less run; the chains at this point were mostly symbolic. The guards clapped them on him anyway, then lifted him under the arms and carried him from the cell.

It was hard to pay attention to his surroundings, when even the slightest movement was sending jolts of agony through his knee, his hip, his side, his arm, or all of them at once. Even so, though, he could not help but notice the pressing crowds, held back only by the interference of what must have been every guard in the palace: it seemed like a lot of people had come out to witness his execution.

And… there it was. The pyre. He was carried to the top of it, chained to the metal post that stuck up through the center of the wooden platform, and left hanging there, now held up by nothing but the chains around his wrists.

Zuko had witnessed enough executions in his childhood to know how this worked: first, a herald would read the charges against him. He would be offered the chance to recant his crimes. Then, as soon as that was finished, four imperial firebenders would come forward, one on each side of the pyre, and light it simultaneously on signal. Soaked with a flammable liquid, the wood would catch instantly and it would burn hot, hot enough to reduce a human body to ashes, but also at exactly the right temperature for him to _feel_ every second as the flesh was cooked from his bones. It was an agonizing way to go.

As the herald read out the list of his supposed crimes, Zuko tuned him out. He already knew more or less what they would be: treason. Murder. Regicide. Many of them were _just_ close enough to the truth to make the crowd believe, but that didn't mean _he_ had to give it credence.

Finally, the herald stopped talking, and rolled up the scroll. He turned to Zuko. "By law and tradition, though you must die today, you may mitigate your offenses by means of a confession. Will you now recant your crimes, and go to Agni with honor?"

Zuko had been ready for this moment. He raised his head, and took as deep a breath as he could manage. "I am dying with honor." He spoke clearly, and projected his voice as much as possible; a murmur ran through the crowd at his words.

"So be it." The herald raised his hand. "May Agni have mercy on your soul."

Even as he finished speaking, the herald's hand dropped… the imperial firebenders all shot their fists forward… Zuko braced himself for the searing pain…

…but instead of bursting into flames, the wood beneath him _froze_.

All of the guards let out exclamations of surprise… all, that is, except one: the lone imperial firebender who wasn't looking around in confusion, who wasn't a firebender at all, because she was moving her arms and shifting her stances in a style that Zuko knew very, very well, and as she moved liquid flowed in a stream around her, before shooting outward in a wave to overwhelm and push back the guards…

 _No, Katara, what are you doing_ , he thought, as every one of the guards shot fire in her direction at once… she was going to be completely overwhelmed, her water burned away… but then, rather then evaporating, the liquid she was wielding burst into flame.

Unbelievable. Somehow, rather than using her own water, Katara had pulled out the flammable liquid that soaked the wood pile beneath him, and used it as a weapon.

Behind the safety of the wall of fire, a spike of earth shot up through the bottom of the wood pile and snapped the chains that bound him to the pole. With nothing left to hold him up, Zuko fell.

The last thing he was aware of was the earth opening beneath him to swallow him whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, folks, the moment I know everyone's been waiting for: the Obligatory Chapter Where I Spend the Whole Time Beating on Zuko. Enjoy!


	13. Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "[Kape Fear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3laFSoisIA)" by Elder Island

Their plan, when they'd finally made one, had been nothing short of suicidal. Even Sokka would have been appalled at her recklessness… but the only other option was leaving Zuko to die, and as far as plans went, it was the only one they had.

Katara had barely even recovered enough of her strength to walk, much less fight. Though Lien had healed the burns on her ankles, and improved the chi flow through the rest of her body to help her make a faster recovery, there was nothing even the best healer could do to reverse nearly a year's worth of near-starvation and muscle atrophy. The only thing that would do that was regular meals, and exercise, and time—time, the one thing they _didn't_ have.

So, she'd let Lien help her hobble to the cave where she and Zuko had been sheltering as soon as she was able to get her feet under her for more than five seconds at a time. There, she'd rested, and eaten, and done whatever she could to rally her failing strength, and sent Lien into the city for information and supplies.

Katara didn't like it. Protecting Lien had become such a habit that it was hard, now, to accept that _Katara_ now had to depend on _her_ , and Lien didn't know how to blend into a crowd the way that Katara did. At this point, though, there was no other option: Katara remembered all too well how badly things had ended for her the _last_ time she'd tried to get information by blending into the crowd. Lien, at least, had firebending as a cover, and her face was not known.

Lien stumbling into a part-time job at an apothecary was an unexpected stroke of luck—not only did it provide her with an honest means of getting the supplies they so desperately needed, it had also provided them with a source of information. Because of her age, she was able to ask questions that would have been much more suspicious coming from an adult: things like how exactly Fire Nation executions worked, and whether there would be any other festivities planned for the occasion. According to her, the shopkeeper had answered her with clear distaste, before reiterating that she would be better off staying home on that day. After that, Lien hadn't felt safe continuing to ask those sorts of questions and dropped it, but by that point, the information she _had_ passed to Katara had been enough for her to form the rough beginnings of a plan.

The hardest part, as it turned out, had been taking the place of an imperial firebender—to say nothing of finding out _which_ of them were supposed to be on duty lighting the pyre. She'd had to sneak into the crowd wearing a hood pulled low over her face, listening carefully to the conversations being held by anyone wearing a white skull mask. Eventually, she'd heard someone complaining about being put on execution duty, which made him sick to his stomach but which he didn't feel he could back out of for fear of bringing his patriotism into question.

She'd made note of that one, and kept him in her sight until he'd walked off alone to relieve his nervous bladder. There, she'd crept up silently behind him and frozen his hands and feet together before sending a glob of water in through his mask and freezing it over his nose and mouth. Unable to breathe, he'd passed out after only a brief struggle, and Katara had reclaimed her water along with his uniform before tying him up and having Lien bury him up to the neck in a nearby stand of trees. There were enough people in this area that once he regained consciousness and started shouting, he'd be found and freed… eventually.

"You'll thank me for this later," Katara had whispered to the unconscious man as she'd slipped the mask into place.

After that, she had only to slip back among the knot of soldiers who were wearing uniforms identical to the one she'd stolen. It was hard, to stand there doing nothing but wait, her nerves strung tight as a bowstring wondering what was happening to Zuko, whether Lien had managed to pull off her part of the plan, and what she was going to do if it was discovered that she was an impostor—if the man whose uniform she'd stolen managed to get rescued early, if one of his friends tried to talk to her and realized the wrong person was behind the mask, if she flubbed the part she was playing and did something to give herself away. Not to mention whether she was even physically capable of carrying out the plan that she'd made: she hadn't had time to regain much of her strength, and the heavy armor weighed down on her with every movement.

Finally, though, the wait was over, the announcement was made, and Zuko was brought out. Katara had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from showing any reaction: though it was hard to tell from this distance exactly what had been done to him during his time in prison, he seemed to be barely conscious, he couldn't walk, and had to be carried to the pyre.

_Wait for the right moment_ , she reminded herself sternly, stamping down on her every instinct to get him out of there this instant. Though Lien could usually locate people through the earth, she'd admitted to Katara that she couldn't tell who was who through vibrations alone, so the only reliable means of making sure they got the right person was to grab whoever was closest to the metal pole.

So, she gritted her teeth and waited until Zuko had been chained up there, slumping against the pole because he was unable to take his own weight. She waited until the charges had been read. Right when she judged she would have the maximum amount of surprise, she struck.

After that, everything was chaos. The breakout of the fight was supposed to be Lien's signal, but Katara could not afford the attention to turn around and check; all of her focus was taken up with holding off the guards that were now just as determined to immolate _her_. She wouldn't be able to hold out against them for long: indeed, she wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to keep _standing_. So, once the liquid she'd pulled from the pyre had been set alight, she retreated behind the wall of flames (the pyre was now burning as well, albeit hopefully with no one on it), and stomped her foot four times against the ground, followed by a pause and two more and a pause and two more, and immediately found herself being sucked beneath the stones of the courtyard.

The Fire Nation wouldn't find them down here, not without digging, and Lien was so good at making the ground appear undisturbed that if luck was with them, no one would even guess that there _had_ been any earthbending involved. Now, with Lien holding a tiny flame aloft, Katara knelt down next to the now-unconscious Zuko and pressed a water-coated hand to his chest.

Immediately, her heart sank: he had internal injuries, organs bruised by blunt impacts or torn by shards of broken ribs. "Get to work on that tunnel," she told Lien tensely as she worked to heal the damage before it became deadly.

By the time that Lien had extended the tunnel enough to make moving worthwhile, Katara had exhausted the limits of her healing, but she had at least gotten him stabilized. Feeling drained, she stripped off the stolen armor and eased the padding underneath Zuko's body to shield him from the cold, before freezing a wave of ice underneath him to move him as gently as possible. In this condition, she knew, he shouldn't be moved _at all—_ but they had no choice, and it was the best she could do.

The journey was painfully slow. In order for Lien to tunnel them under the earth without making a visible disturbance above, she had to be very precise and careful with her earthbending, and that meant taking her time; when she did bend, the walls moved around them more like the inside of a living creature than inanimate stone and dirt. It was impossible to tell where they were going down here; Katara had only told her to go toward the sea, and Lien was doing that as best she could, always leading them in whichever direction the dirt held the most moisture.

The next time they stopped, Katara dug into their supplies until she found Zuko's dagger: he'd left it with Lien, this time. After making sure that Lien still had her full attention on trying to earthbend the tunnel while keeping the flame in her hand lit at the same time, Katara carefully began to cut Zuko out of his clothes.

It was… bad. Even worse than she'd anticipated when she'd just been going by chi. Nearly a full half of his body was covered in deep black and purple bruises. His left arm was shattered, his hip broken in at least two places, most of his ribs cracked, and his knee torn up inside and swollen to nearly twice its normal size. She hastily spread a blanket over him before Lien could turn around and see.

Katara did what she could for him while she was waiting for Lien to work: splinted his arm and leg to save them from further damage, applied healing water to those injuries that were most severe, salved and bandaged the open wounds, and bent medicine and water down his throat. It wasn't nearly enough, but right now, it was all she could do.

"Where are we going to go once we get to the ocean?" Lien asked eventually.

"I…" Katara started, but then closed her mouth, the sentence unfinished, as she realized that she didn't actually _know_ what they were going to do. When they'd made their plans, they'd initially intended to go back to the Earth Kingdom after rescuing Zuko, either by stealing a raft or making one of ice and taking it in turns to drive, but now, with Zuko in the condition he was in, Katara did not like his chances of surviving a journey that long.

"I suppose we're going to have to camp out in the cave," she admitted at last. "You can keep going into the city to get us supplies." The shopkeeper's regular assistant had recovered enough to come back to work two days ago, but it wasn't like Lien couldn't get another job, especially now that there was someone in the capital who could vouch for her talent. "Or maybe we could get to another nearby island, find a town where my face isn't known…" Not a good plan, either way. By this point the whole island would be crawling with Fire Nation troops searching for the escaped prince; it would be far too difficult to successfully hide. Even if they went elsewhere… going elsewhere would mean finding a new hiding place, establishing themselves in a new community, finding a new source of medicine and food…

She must have been silent a long time, weighing the potential benefits against the risks to their lives, when Lien spoke again. "Zuko said that if something happened to him, I should go to the Sun Warrior ruins. I…" as Katara looked up at her questioningly, "I have this feeling…"

"Are you saying this as the Avatar?" Katara prodded at last, gently.

Lien bit her lip, and her eyes went briefly out of focus. "Aang also thinks it's a good idea," she replied at last.

Katara pondered that, but she didn't have time to think about it for very long: a few minutes later, the tunnel they were in opened up not into more dark earth, but onto a starlit ocean with the last rays of the sun only just sinking beneath the horizon.

There was nothing for it: Katara froze a chunk of the seawater into a large raft of ice, and used her waterbending to ease Zuko onto it as gently as possible. Lien leaped aboard after her.

It was a new Moon night, meaning that their waterbending would be at its weakest… but that would also make it much harder for anyone else to see them.

"Do what you think is best," Katara told Lien after a few seconds of struggling with herself, surrendering control of a situation that she finally had to admit had escalated beyond her ability to deal with alone. "And remember: no fire."

Lien nodded. Then, she pushed them out into the ocean.

* * *

They did have a map, but it was so dark that she could barely make out the contours of the islands, much less read their names, and she couldn't risk drawing the Fire Nation's attention by lighting a flame. As they skimmed over the waves, however, Lien was surprised to find that she didn't _need_ a map. Zuko had always taken great pains to teach her the stars, where they would be depending on the hour and the season and her current location, and how to use their light to find her way if she had no other means of telling directions. The map was in her head; as long as she knew which direction she was going, and where the various landmasses lay relative to each other, she need not worry about getting lost.

Then, too, there was the fact that whenever she started to go off-course, she would look up and see a faint blue figure standing atop the waves, visible to her eyes alone, beckoning her forward. Whenever this happened, Lien would correct her course until they were going directly towards him, and Aang would disappear once more into thin air.

Aside from that, though, she was almost completely on her own: Katara was busy tending to Zuko, and Aang did not speak to her, only guided her way. When she saw faint lights hovering over the water ahead of them, however, Lien knew that she had to speak.

"Katara…?"

Katara's head snapped up as if she'd been half-asleep, and even in the moonless, fire-less night, Lien could see her eyes widen. "That's a Fire Nation ship!" she whispered. "Switch places!"

Lien backed up next to where Zuko was, while Katara leaped to her feet and lurched to the front of the raft. "Heal him under the blanket," she instructed even as she took control of their makeshift craft. "We can't take the chance of anyone seeing the glowing."

Then, the raft plunged down under the water, even as a bubble of ice formed around it to enclose them.

Lien shivered. It was cold in here, and she could barely see. She knew that the weight of the ocean was pressing down above them, and that the only thing protecting them was that thin bubble of ice. Nevertheless, she did her best to push back her fear and knelt, because Zuko was still hurt and she had to do _something_.

She found the blanket mostly by touch, and wriggled her hand underneath it until her fingers met skin.

He was cold to the touch—far colder than she could ever remember him being before, and it wasn't until she felt him take a breath that Lien realized she'd been holding her own. Fingers trembling, she uncorked her waterskin, coated her hand, and eased it back under the blanket before pressing it to his side.

It was… bad. Even with only the touch of her water, Lien could find internal damage that was still only partially healed, and a body that was on the brink of shutting down because it had simply sustained too much damage with not enough care. Ever since they'd rescued him, Katara had been keeping Zuko wrapped up in blankets: he needed to be kept warm, she'd said, and they needed to cover the healing glow of the water. Now, Lien started to suspect she might have had other reasons as well.

She knew better than to cast fire here, or to risk revealing the light… but she still needed to know. Gingerly, she used her forearms to lift the edge of the blanket, and pulled it up over her head.

It was impossible to see much with only the glow of the water to go by, but even that little peek was enough for her to see that Zuko's entire side was discolored. She didn't like to think how those bruises would appear in the much more unforgiving light of day, or what he might look like on the _inside_. Hands shaking, she pulled her head back from under the blankets and continued her healing.

"Katara?" she asked, just for the sake of having something to say. "How much longer are we going to stay underwater?"

"As long as we have to," Katara answered cryptically. As she spoke, Lien realized: _She doesn't know either. She's just as lost and scared as I am._ All of a sudden, she found herself shivering, and couldn't seem to stop no matter how much she rubbed her arms.

It was impossible to tell how long they stayed down there, in the dark and the cold. Several times, though, their little bubble of ice bobbed cautiously toward the surface, and Katara ordered her to leave Zuko for the moment and take over steering while she opened a hole in the top and boosted herself up on a block of ice, just high enough that she could stick her head out. When she came back down, she closed the hole and took the ice bubble back under her control, where it sank once more beneath the waves.

Lien had lost count of how many times they'd surfaced and gone back under by the time Katara breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped down. "All clear." It was the first time she'd spoken for any reason other than to switch places.

At long last, they resurfaced for real, their bubble of ice dissolving into a plume of sea spray as their raft crested above the waves. Without consultation, Lien moved to take her place as navigator while Katara once more turned back to take over healing. She was staggering as she walked.

"Are… are you okay?" Lien asked as she slumped to her knees beside Zuko, not so much sitting as falling as her legs buckled under her.

"I'm just so _tired_ ," Katara confessed as she moved water-coated hands under the blanket.

To that, Lien could say nothing. Instead, she turned back to her navigation in silence.

Their time underwater had thrown them somewhat off-course: Lien had known where she was going when Katara had sunk them, but the horizon she saw now was different from the one she'd been looking at before they'd submerged. After a few minutes of blinking, however, she managed to identify the black humps of several Fire Nation islands that were slightly offset from where she'd expected them to be, and several constellations that were now significantly higher in the sky than they had been the last time she'd looked.

"She's right, you know."

Lien was not startled by the voice: it was, after all, a part of her. She did not turn to look at Aang as she propelled her way toward the island of the Sun Warrior ruins that was finally visible in the distance. Whenever he'd appeared to her in her early life, she'd never answered him out loud because she'd never seemed to need to; now, once more, she trusted him to know her mind whether she spoke it to him or not.

"I remember when I first met Katara and Zuko," Aang continued when she did not speak. "They both denied it, but they were still just kids themselves. To be honest, I'm not sure how they've kept going as long as they have." He sighed. "I wish there was more that I could do to help them."

He meant, that _she_ could do. Lien said nothing, and tried to focus on her waterbending.

Aang looked at her sadly, as if he could hear everything that she had just thought. Then, he curled up into himself and rested his chin on his knees.

"The responsibility should have been mine," he said quietly. "I'm the one who belonged in that world, solving that conflict. I wish that I'd been able to… that I could have… that things had turned out differently."

Once again, there was nothing that Lien could say in reply. Aang must already know how overwhelmed she felt about her _own_ life.

Aang seemed to realize it, too, for he faded back into nonexistence shortly thereafter. Lien, for her part, could only continue to drive.

She was so tired she did not even realize how tired she was: she had had no sleep now for nearly a full day and night. All she knew was that her eyelids were drooping, but that if she continued to go through the motions, and to keep their destination in her sights, then she could still function just well enough to do what she had to. She _had_ to function on her own, to drive the raft and make decisions and stand on her own two feet, because Zuko and Katara could no longer do it for her.

Given her state of exhaustion, it took a few blinks and probably a few minutes before Lien even began to register the changes. The first was that the sky, formerly a star-studded black, was now beginning to glow with shades of purple and orange. The second was that the hulking island in front of them, silhouetted against the newly-lightened sky, now filled nearly the whole of her vision, and there was a sandy shoreline within her sight.

They had reached the Sun Warrior ruins, and it was dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My one-sentence summary of this whole book: "Oh snap, my parents are _human!_ "
> 
> This is yet another one of those fun character parallels between Zuko and Katara: that even at the start of the series, they'd both been through so much trauma that they'd forgotten how young they were, to the point where Aang was the only one who was able to see through the ruse, even though they both denied it within a day of meeting him ("I haven't done this since I was a kid!" "You still are a kid!" and "You're just a child!" "Well, you're just a teenager.").
> 
> Other than that? I had a lot of fun having Katara find a non-lethal way to render someone unconscious without resorting to the obligatory knock on the head, which even though it's often _portrayed_ as harmless and non-lethal, is actually a life-threatening injury and a misconception I don't want to perpetuate. (Still adding the obligatory I am not medically trained and am doing the best I can with the information I have but it's still entirely possible that I've made an error, in additional to the obligatory DO NOT try this at home.)
> 
> (Also, I just spent the last few minutes screaming a lot of obscenities at my computer because, after a whole morning of putting off updating the chapter because there were other things I had to take care of first—I'll do it after I finish my daily round with Duolingo, but now I'm hungry, and oh look, it's time to fold laundry—I'd just found the time to finally upload the thing, and I'd _finally_ finished revising final upload of the chapter when my oh-so-considerate system suddenly decided that it was time for an update, and that it had to restart Firefox RIGHT NOW, not after, y'know, giving me a few minutes' notice to save any important work I might have been in the middle of, but RIGHT THIS INSTANT, no further ANYTHING allowed until after Firefox has been restarted. Thank you _so much_ , Firefox. This is clearly a brilliant design choice that no one could _possibly_ find any fault with, especially now that most people are working from home and require a functional and _reliable_ internet in order to do their jobs.)
> 
> ( _Also_ also, I need to take a break between this book and the next by doing something considerably less epic and a lot more self-indulgent, so I just got my card for the Bad Things Happen Bingo [here](https://lazy8blog.tumblr.com/post/622679659902107648/here-is-your-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo), so if anyone wants to submit a request, now would be the time. If no one gives me characters to torture, I'm just going to make Python chuck names at me at random.)


	14. Forgive Yourself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "Toe to Toe" by Zeb

_The two boys walked side by side in the ruins of an ancient city. Zuko was a lot younger, and Aang was solid and real, without his normal appearance of see-through ghostly blue, but it was still unmistakably them._

_"_ _Even though these buildings are ancient, there's something eerily familiar about them," Zuko said. "I can tell the Fire Sages' temples are somehow descended from these."_

_"_ _Okay. We've learned something about architecture. Hopefully, we'll learn something about firebending too. The past can be a great teacher." Even as Aang spoke, however, his next step disturbed a tripwire._

_Even as Aang tripped, flailing and off-balance, the walkway directly in front of him sank into the ground, a field of nasty-looking spikes popping up in its place. He was only saved from impalement by blowing a blast of air that was strong enough to propel him to the other side._

_In contrast to the cheerful optimism of only a few seconds ago, Aang looked visibly rattled as he turned around. "Zuko, I think the past is trying to kill me!"_

_"_ _I can't believe it." Zuko knelt, and picked up the tripwire. "This booby trap must be centuries old and it still works."_

_"_ _There's probably a lot more. Maybe this means we shouldn't be here."_

_Zuko stood up, stepped back, and crossed the pit by sprinting over the wall. He dusted off his shirt after he landed. "Where's that upbeat attitude you were talking about?" He turned to look further up the street, to where a bigger building was clearly visible. "Besides, people don't make traps unless they've got something worth protecting."_

_Now, Aang and Zuko were before the same building that Zuko had noticed from a distance. Aang was unsuccessfully tugging at the doors._

_"_ _It's locked up!"_

_Zuko rubbed his head, before turning to look behind him—where a transparent red stone was set into the center of a column of rock. "Wait." When he stepped to the side, the beam of reddened sunlight that was focused through the stone fell onto a carving on the ground at his feet._

_"_ _It's a celestial calendar," he realized. "Just like the Fire Sages have in their temples." He turned to look at a similar red stone that was mounted above the gates. "I bet that sunstone opens the door, but only when sunlight hits at just the right angle. On the solstice."_

Lien's eyes snapped open, the events of the past few days crashing in on her all in a rush: Katara, missing. Zuko, absent. Katara, freed but half-starved and weak. The rescue. Zuko, so badly hurt he was pushing the limits of what a human body could withstand. The frantic escape over a pitch-dark nighttime ocean atop a block of ice. Their arrival on the island of the Sun Warrior ruins… and also, _today was the solstice_.

Still blinking the last traces of sleep out of her eyes, she sat up and took a look around. Katara did not stir as Lien slipped out from under the blanket all three of them were sharing.

After they'd taken shelter under the trees and gotten rid of the ice raft, Katara had told her to sleep. They'd just about reached the limits of what they could do for Zuko, and they were both completely exhausted. They could figure out what to do next, she'd said, once they'd had some rest and their heads were a bit clearer.

Though Lien had fully expected to sleep through most of the day, she was now wide awake, and the position of the sun told her it wasn't even noon. Normally, she might have tried to go back to sleep anyway, but for the fact that she knew better, by now, than to believe the strange dream a coincidence. Sure enough, when she turned her gaze deeper into the trees, she saw the ghostly blue figure of Aang, waving for her to follow.

Almost automatically, Lien took a step into the trees… and then stopped. She knew how exhausted Katara had been, and didn't want to wake her, but what would they think if she or Zuko woke up, only to find her gone?

She bit her lip. Aang's beckoning was growing more urgent by the second, but Lien could not follow without at least letting them know where she'd gone. It didn't take long for her to locate a fair-sized rock; after moving it to within easy view of Katara's resting place, she used her earthbending to carve a hasty note into its surface:

_Aang wants me to go into the city. I'll be back before nightfall._ As soon as that was done, she ran off through the trees.

The second she stepped through the gates of the city, Aang vanished, leaving Lien to walk alone with the hot late morning sun beating down on the back of her neck and ancient stone walls rising on all sides. She shuddered at the images that were carved into some of those stones: dragons, bathing helpless human figures in an inferno of fire, a new and wholly unfamiliar display of savagery. Why had Zuko told her to come here—and for that matter, why had Aang?

When she saw the tripwire lying on the ground, and realized that she had been looking for it the whole time without even being consciously aware that she was doing it, her skin went cold as she experienced a momentary, but nearly overpowering, surreal wave of déjà vu. Carefully, she knelt just behind the wire, picked it up, and gave it a tug.

The hairs stood up on the back of her neck when, just like in her dream, the stones in front of her sank down and wickedly pointed spikes popped up in their place. Lien shot to her feet, dropping the rope as if it had burned her. The visions she had seen as she'd slept _had_ been real memories, then: Aang's memories. He and Zuko had come here together, once, walking the exact same path that she now walked. They had continued up this street, until they had reached a building that was meant to open only on the solstice. Then…

…then, she didn't know. The visions had not continued past that point.

Taking a deep breath, Lien used a bit of gentle earthbending to set the street back in place. Then, being careful not to touch the tripwire, she continued to follow the street further into the heart of the ancient city.

As she got closer to her mysterious destination and the sun rose higher into the sky, however, Lien began to realize that she wasn't nearly as alone as she'd thought: first in the distance, in ones and twos, and then ever closer and more numerous, she began to notice other people, unlike any people she'd ever seen before. Their clothing was mostly red with highlights of gold— _Fire Nation_ , screamed the automatic warning in her mind—and left much of their skin bare but for the paint that decorated their faces and torsos in elaborate swirls and loops. Golden jewelry adorned their limbs, and everyone she looked at had at least one golden earring in each ear. Their hair was bound up into long tails; the men's heads were partially shaved. Many of them wore feathers: long feathers, dyed in unnaturally bright colors.

Even as she noticed them, however, Lien noticed them beginning to notice _her_. As she came within sight of them, heads turned, and people stopped what they were doing in order to stare at her. It occurred to her, painfully and too late, that she was an obvious outsider here: she wore no paint, no jewelry, and no feathers, and her plain, unadorned clothing was rumpled and filthy. Had she actually been exploring an abandoned ruin, none of this would have mattered, but here she was, and here they were, and she finally understood the truth that both Zuko and Aang had carefully not told her: the Sun Warrior civilization was alive and well.

Even worse, they all seemed to be going to the same place that she was. A wave of quiet seemed to radiate outward from her location; conversations stopped as the speakers got a glimpse of her. She had to get out of here; she had to run, she had to get back to—

—back to Zuko and Katara.

If she fled now, and led the strangers back to their campsite, how were they going to react to find more strangers on their land? Would they attack? Katara _might_ still be able to fight, but she was exhausted and undernourished; against a large group of firebenders in the middle of the day, the odds were not in her favor. And Zuko… right now, Zuko wouldn't stand a chance.

Running, then, was not an option. Lien was going to have to _face_ whatever it was that she had walked into here, and she was going to have to face it alone.

Even as she joined the crowd that was amassing in the temple courtyard, however, though Lien continued to get weird looks, none of the warriors who were present made any effort to stop her. For the time being, at least, it seemed like they'd decided to tolerate her presence.

Once all had gathered, a hush fell over the crowd as a man in an elaborate feathered headdress stepped out before them, arms spread wide. Lien gulped: she could recognize an authority figure when she saw one.

"In the beginning," he said, his voice ringing out over the whole courtyard, "there was the world.

"The earth was rich. Water filled the oceans and flowed in many clear streams. Winds blew freely through the sky. Every living creature that dwelled upon the world had everything that it needed.

"Or so, it should have been. Yet, the sky was eternally black, with nothing but moonlight and starlight to show the way. The land was cold. Plants could not grow, and the people had to eat their meat raw. Though the people had everything they needed to survive, it was a paltry and miserable existence.

"In this dark world there lived the one known as Agni. Never before or since has such a magnificent creature lived: every inch of his body was covered with blood-red scales that gleamed like jewels, his ruff was of gleaming gold, his teeth were such a pure white that even the touch of snow stained them, and his size was so vast that a man could grow old attempting to walk from his head to his tail. Most wonderful of all, however, were his eyes: like molten gold they were, unspeakably fierce but also kind, and their very gaze lit up the darkness before them."

_He's talking about a dragon_ , Lien realized with a start. _Agni… Agni is a dragon!_

"Agni took pity on the small, scurrying creatures that lived in his domain. He saw that they were hungry, so he let them cook their meat in the warmth of his breath. He saw that they were cold, so he let them sleep lying nestled against his side. Thanks to the mercy of Agni, those previously doomed to spend their lives shivering in darkness now had warmth, and light, and a safe place to sleep. Before long, humans from all over the world were making pilgrimages to join the community that was growing within the safety of his coils. Some of his most devoted followers were even allowed to study his teachings, to learn the secret of his warmth by imitating his movements. For those chosen few to whom he had given shelter, life was good.

"Even Agni's charity, however, was not infinite, and eventually, he began to approach the limits of what he could provide. Though he had laid himself in a circle from end to end as far as his body could stretch, more and more people were being born within the shelter of his coils, and more and more were arriving from out of the darkness to seek a reprieve from the endless cold night. The safe space he'd provided grew crowded, the people began to turn aggressive as they vied with each other for space and warmth, and Agni in his wisdom knew that things could not continue as they were.

"In this, he reached a conclusion: if he was to help, then he must help _everybody_ , not just those who had the good fortune to come to him personally. So, for the first time in centuries, he pushed himself to his feet. He set his sights on the black, star-flecked sky. Then, he spread his great wings, and leaped aloft.

"At first, the people feared he was abandoning them, that their constant quarreling had come to offend him and he was leaving them to fend for themselves. Watching his magnificent form retreating into the endlessly dark sky, they cried and begged for him to come back.

"But Agni did not come back. He flew, higher and higher, until the whole world was laid out beneath his wings. Then, once he could see all the land and all the people who were struggling to survive, he inhaled as deeply as he could manage, and breathed.

"Never before or since has any fire burned so hotly, or so bright. Agni's breath was so powerful and so full of life that it lit up the whole sky, spreading warmth and light over the whole world and all of the people who lived in it, and the people looked up in wonder as the darkness and the cold were chased away. Strong as he was, however, even Agni eventually tired, and was forced to return to the earth as night once more enveloped the land. Once he had rested, though, he returned to the air and breathed life into the sky once more, and again after that, and again after that. Thus he will continue to do so until the end of time: and thus people the world over will always be given life."

After he had spoken the last sentence, the storyteller stepped aside. The light from the sunstone, which had been blocked by his body, now fell fully on the matching stone that was mounted over the doors of the temple.

Inside of the temple, something clicked. Then, slowly, the doors began to swing open of their own accord.

As if pulled by an invisible string, Lien found herself walking toward those open doors. Without a word, the crowd parted to let her through, until she was standing directly in front of the speaker. He looked down at her for a moment as if in challenge, and though his face was stern, she could see no cruelty in his expression.

"Well," he said, and stepped aside. "Let the outsider prove her worth."

Lien swallowed nervously, but there was no turning back: the crowd that had previously parted to let her through now closed ranks against her, preventing any possibility of escape and leaving her nowhere to go but forward. She could not stay rooted to the spot forever, so she tentatively took the first few steps through the doorway whose threshold had haunted her dreams.

At her first glimpse of the interior, she gasped, before realizing that the grim-faced men who surrounded her on all sides were only statues, illuminated by shafts of sunlight that shone down from the ceiling. The writing on the wall said they were performing something called the "Dancing Dragon".

" _Zuko, get over here! I want you to dance with me!_ "

Lien shook her head as the echoes of events long past whispered through her mind. Then, not giving herself time to think but acting on intuition alone, knowing somehow that she had done this at least once before, she stepped forward to imitate the first statue's pose.

As she stepped into position, one of the floor tiles gave slightly under her foot. Lien looked around, startled, and immediately a grinning youth, close to her age, stepped into the room and took up a stance that was an exact mirror of hers.

"I was wondering how long you'd take to figure it out."

Lien did not answer, but felt her face heat as she moved on to the next pose, again feeling the floor tiles sink under her feet. The boy mirrored her every move. Step by step, they completed the circle, until they stood at the opposite end of the temple from where they'd begun with their arms outstretched and their fists almost touching.

As the steps were completed and a pedestal rose from the center of the floor, bringing a giant golden egg into view, Lien stepped out of the circle of statues and fell back against the wall, breathing hard, not from exertion but from stress. It seemed that she had just been subjected to some sort of test, and she could only hope that she had passed… but what, she wondered, was going to happen if she had—or worse, if she _hadn't?_

It seemed she was about to find out. As the rest of the Sun Warriors filed in one by one to lay a hand respectfully atop the egg and speak a few low words before stepping out again, the man with the feathered headdress approached her. "So," he began, looking down at her once more. "Who are you, and why have you come here? More importantly, now that you have discovered our secrets, why should we allow you to leave?"

Lien wasn't sure what happened next. All she knew was that one second, she was staring up at the big intimidating man with the painted face and the feathers in his hair; the next, she was on her hands and knees in front of him, feeling a bit lightheaded and incredibly wobbly.

"I see," he said, as if whatever had just happened made some sort of sense. "Welcome back… Avatar."

* * *

While the rest of the Sun Warriors continued to perform the rituals of their solstice celebration, Lien led the chief and a few strong volunteers back to their campsite near the beach. Though her first instinct had been to claim that she'd come alone, Aang had reassured her that he'd known this man in his own life and reminded her that they desperately needed the help.

As they pushed their way through the trees, the sound of raised voices ahead let them know that they were getting close: it seemed that Katara had woken up and Zuko had regained consciousness, and from the sound of it, neither one of them was happy.

"…were you _thinking?_ " Katara's voice rang through the jungle so loudly that a flock of lizard-birds was startled into sudden flight, and the chief looked at Lien with an eyebrow raised. Lien hunched her shoulders. "I _explicitly told you_ not to come after me! You were almost _executed!_ "

"Oh, and leaving you to a life of slavery would have been any better?" Zuko, at least, seemed to be holding his own, and Lien, who had always been so upset by the two of them yelling at each other, was now finally beginning to hear another truth behind the raised voices: they were fighting because they _cared_.

"At least I had a chance of _surviving!_ I was _ready to make that sacrifice_ , if it would have kept you and Lien safe! I've _done_ my part! _I'm_ an acceptable loss! You're not! You _have_ to teach Lien, and you _have_ to survive this war so there's someone left to pick up the pieces afterward! Why couldn't you have just respected my wishes, and cut your losses _before_ you got up to your neck in trouble?"

" _Because that's exactly what Ozai would have done!_ "

For a moment, there was a shocked silence. Though they were now nearly within sight of the camp, and needed only to push aside one last clump of leaves, Lien hesitated to announce her presence: there was something about this moment that seemed incredibly private.

"But that _wasn't_ Ozai's decision, or yours," Katara continued at last. "It was mine." In contrast to her earlier yelling, she now sounded close to tears. "Zuko, I am not worth you having to go through this."

"Yeah, well you're worth it to _me!_ "

By this point, however, the chief seemed to have tired of waiting, for he chose that moment to push his way through the bushes, and Lien hastily followed. The last thing she wanted was for this to end in a battle.

Sure enough, Katara leaped into a waterbending stance the second she saw the strangers, though she was ashen-faced and swaying on her feet, and Lien hastened to stand between them. "It's okay," she reassured quickly. "I… they know who we are. They told me they'd help."

"Lien's right; they're trustworthy," Zuko hastened to add. He attempted to push himself up on one elbow, but promptly collapsed with a hiss of pain and decided to speak from the ground. "We've… met the Sun Warriors, before. Aang and I."

" _This_ is what you weren't telling me?" Katara's water splashed to the ground. "The Sun Warrior civilization is… is still alive?"

"If you don't mind," the chief interrupted, taking a step closer, "the Avatar has told us that you require assistance. Perhaps you could resume your argument _after_ we have helped you?"

"O-of course." Katara blushed, and then bowed. "Thank you so much."

* * *

After getting Zuko onto a stretcher, the Sun Warriors guided them not back into the city, but rather to a much smaller community that was tucked between two mountains under a stretch of trees. Though the dwellings were considerably smaller and sparser than the intricately carved walls and paved streets that made up the city, they were well-constructed and they were clean, and even to her inexperienced eyes, the layout looked efficient.

"So, if you don't mind my asking," Katara said, falling into step with the chief, "why are you living over _here_ when you've got… well, _that?_ " She gestured pointedly in the direction of the magnificent, ancient city, which lay sprawled over a significant portion of the island.

The chief did not answer right away, only gave her an appraising look. "If you could remake your home in the image of the Northern Water Tribe, or of Ba Sing Se," he returned at last, "would you?"

"Of _course_ I wouldn't! I—"

Katara ground to a halt as she realized what the man had _really_ been saying. Yes, the loss of their waterbenders had devastated her tribe, and she'd give them back the means to make life easier if she could. Yes, the dwellings of the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se had provided every comfort one could ask for and more space than she'd known what to do with, and the crystal palaces of the Northern Water Tribe were beautiful and intricate, in ways that the humble dwellings of the South had never managed in her lifetime—but Katara had also _lived_ there, and she'd learned that "perfect" and "grandiose" could just as easily become "stifling" and "lonely". If she had to choose, she'd trade a whole glacier's worth of crystal palaces for the familiar coziness of her Gran-Gran's humble tent in a heartbeat, no questions asked. "I'm sorry," she blurted, her face turning hot. "That was such a stupid question—"

The chief, seeing the look on her face, burst out laughing. "Though it is still part of our culture and we do our best to keep it in good repair, there are far too few of us now to comfortably live in that monstrosity of a city. Besides," he added, "we wish to keep our civilization hidden, and a city that grandiose is not particularly good for hiding."

"No," Katara admitted. "I suppose that it isn't." A few seconds of silence passed before she turned once more to look at the chief. "I'll keep your secret as well," she vowed. "I give you my word."

"I'm glad to hear as much." The chief smiled back at her. "Otherwise, I'd have to kill you."

Katara honestly couldn't tell whether or not he was joking.

* * *

"Why don't you go join the festivities?" Katara asked Lien as Zuko was carried into the healer's.

"But—"

"Zuko is in good hands here," Katara cut her off before Lien could even finish her protest. "And there's nothing you can do to help that I couldn't manage myself." She gestured pointedly back at the city, and at their Sun Warrior escort. "Right now, your job is to learn firebending. Don't waste this opportunity while you have it."

As Lien continued to hesitate, a Sun Warrior boy about her age ran up and grabbed her arm. "Come on!" He tugged her back in the direction of the city. "The dancers' next ritual is about to start!"

Though Lien shot her a nervous look, Katara shook her head. "Go," she urged. "We're still going to be here when you get back."

As Lien was half-coaxed and half-dragged back into the city, Katara pushed her way through the string of beads that served as a door to the healer's hut. The inside was larger and much airier than most of the other dwellings she'd seen, with beds laid out in rows and dried herbs hanging from every rafter. Zuko had already been moved into one of the beds, and at the table closer to the back was a gray-haired man who was currently in the process of grinding something with a mortar and pestle.

As Katara took a seat next to Zuko's bed, the healer carefully measured some of whatever he'd been grinding into a small copper crucible, along with an equally-carefully measured spoonful of liquid that was slightly too thick and brownish to be water. Once the ingredients had been mixed to his satisfaction, he held one hand underneath the crucible and produced a tiny flame. It was impossible to tell from over here what measure he was using to determine its readiness, but once he judged it done, he snuffed the flame and stood, transferring the contents of the crucible into a small flask that he brought over with him.

"Unless you're particularly fond of pain," he told Zuko, "you'll want to have this before I start setting that arm." Zuko took it without complaint, allowing the healer to prop up his head as he held the flask to his lips. As soon as he was finished drinking, he slumped back onto the pillow, his eyes slipping closed in an expression of utter exhaustion.

While they were waiting for the medicine to take full effect, the healer turned to Katara. "Can you make yourself useful? Or do I have to ask you to leave before you make my job more difficult?"

"That won't be necessary." Katara uncorked her waterskin, and drew a glove of liquid around her hand. "I'm a healer myself."

The healer nodded curt approval as she returned the water to its source. "Good. I can't treat a patient properly if someone else is fainting or throwing up in the background."

That, as it turned out, was how she met Zan.

Though brusque and no-nonsense, his manner was not deliberately abrasive, and since he had supplies that she didn't and seemed to know what he was doing, Katara offered her assistance without complaint. He started by setting Zuko's broken arm.

Katara watched, fascinated, as Zan, seeming to work mostly by feel, carefully pushed and nudged each of the bone fragments back into place. Bonesetting was not an area in which Katara had much experience; she had never had to set anything worse than a simple fracture, and had despaired of Zuko ever regaining the full use of his arm. Zan, however, worked confidently and without hesitation while Katara braced Zuko's arm or shoulder to keep him still. After he had finished and wrapped Zuko's arm in a firm splint—much neater than the one Katara had been able to make, but then again, he had access to much better supplies—Katara pressed her water to his arm, and found to her satisfaction that the bones were almost perfectly aligned. She had managed to at least start knitting them back together by the time that Zan called her away for assistance on something else.

Zuko was battered enough that it took them some time to finish tending his injuries. His broken hip also needed to be set and immobilized, his knee drained of infection before being cleaned and bandaged, and a poultice applied to keep further infection at bay. Zan worked steadily, with a professional detachment, while Katara used her water to speed the healing, or to work on those injuries traditional medicine couldn't touch. Finally, near sunset, it was done.

Katara stood… and immediately had to grasp the back of the chair to keep from falling as her legs seemed to turn to liquid under her and the room tilted without warning. Zan gave her a stern look.

"It would seem that you're not in the best of shape yourself."

"I'm fine," Katara insisted automatically—because she'd spent the last twelve or thirteen years dealing with one crisis after another, putting people back together after they'd been torn apart in ways that no human body was ever meant to endure, and she couldn't afford to be anything _but_ fine.

Zan raised an eyebrow. "If walking around like a skeleton is your definition of 'fine', then I'd hate to see what the _rest_ of your tribe looks like."

Katara opened her mouth… and then closed it again. "I'm not sure that _I_ want to see what the rest of my tribe looks like either," she admitted quietly. She sat down on the nearest empty bed. "But I don't think there's a whole lot you can do. This is the sort of thing that can only be fixed with time."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of what I can and cannot do." Zan laid a hand on her shoulder. "In the meantime, the least I can do is make sure that you eat."

Lien came back just in time to join them for dinner: cooked vegetables, and a grain that Zan had assured Katara would help restore her strength. Lien was quiet throughout the meal, but it was a thoughtful silence rather than the frightened timidity of her earlier days.

After they had eaten (Katara had been able to finish very little), Lien went over to sit next to Zuko—though fuzzy-headed and slurring his speech, he _was_ awake, and to Katara's relief, he was managing to take some food, and to keep it down. While they were doing that, Katara consented to let Zan have a look at her as well.

Though she still wasn't sure what Zan could do to help her with the effects of prolonged starvation and imprisonment, she nevertheless shrugged out of her dress and laid down on one of the free beds. At first, he merely poked and prodded her in the ways she would expect from any healer, his hands firebender-warm. After a time, though, she realized that he was letting his palms rest for an extended time in several specific places, sending heat past the barrier of her skin and deep into sore joints and stiff, underused muscles, soothing aches she hadn't even known she had.

Katara had never known that fire could _be_ like this: true, she'd occasionally grabbed a heated rock from the fire pit to soothe sore muscles or troublesome cramps, but it was never quite the right temperature, either not hot enough to be effective or so hot it burned her. And of course, if she was ever _really_ hurt, she would turn to the soothing coolness of her water. This was different: heat that penetrated deep into tissue without burning her skin, stopping just short of the point of pain. It had never before occurred to her to wonder why water was the only element that could heal. Now, she questioned whether that most self-evident fact was even the truth at all.

She didn't even notice when she fell asleep.

* * *

When she woke up the next morning, she didn't just feel better: she felt _human_ again, in ways that she hadn't since going into that prison. The road ahead of them might still be long, but now, Katara finally felt as if she had the strength to walk it.

The first thing she did was have Lien earthbend her a shallow pool near the front of the healing hut, when she then filled with water. Once she had moved Zuko into it with Zan's assistance, it was much easier to heal him properly than it was when she was limited to what she could cover with the span of her hand—not to mention it would come in handy for future use, when she had to heal others.

The hospitality of the Sun Warriors, Katara was certain, did not come for free. Being part of a community, however temporarily, meant making a contribution: so, as soon as she was able, she began regularly assisting Zan. Before long, they had fallen into a daily routine: if anyone came to the hut in need of a healer, she would use her water to supplement Zan's more traditional methods, treating everything from burns from training accidents, bruises and sprains from work accidents, and even delivering the occasional baby. If not, Zan would spend the time educating her on the uses of the many available Fire Nation medicinal herbs, herbs whose properties she had never before had an opportunity to learn, how to prepare them and what ailments they could treat: to numb pain, to bring down a fever, to stop bleeding or reduce swelling, to prevent a pregnancy or even to end one in its earliest days, Katara did her best to memorize them all. No matter what she was doing, Zan always stopped her every few hours to make sure that she ate.

The Sun Warrior civilization did not use money as Katara understood it. Instead, the people she treated repaid her in gifts: grains from the harvest; plump fruits and impossibly large vegetables; simple but elegant jewelry; face paint; clothing; long feathers which the local women showed her how to braid into her hair. As weary and beaten down as she was, it took her the better part of a week to notice that every wearable article they gave her was blue or silver, with nary a scrap of red or a glint of gold in sight.

The results looked nothing like authentic Water Tribe clothing. The _effort_ , though, was enough to send her to her knees right there in the middle of the healing house, sobbing into the brand-new skirt that she held pressed to her face.

It was a mistake, she knew, to assume that she was safe—every other time she'd let her guard down and allowed herself to hope or relax had ended in tragedy. Neither, however, could Katara let such a thoughtful gesture go unacknowledged. For the first time in nearly five years, she decided to wear blue, and plait her hair like a proper Water Tribe woman, and actually wear her necklace on her neck rather than wrapped around her arm beneath her clothes. She finished by drawing her tribal mark on her forehead in blue face paint—an unnecessary decoration, but not, she thought, an unjustified one.

"How do I look?" she asked as she stepped out from behind the curtain.

Zuko, to her amusement, looked mildly panicked. "Oh, no. I'm not answering that. Whenever a woman asks that it's _always_ a trick question." Katara only crossed her arms and smiled down at him. "So, um… is there an answer that _won't_ end with me getting a snowball in the face?"

"Do I look _Water Tribe_ , Zuko?" she elaborated, still fighting laughter. "That's all I wanted to know."

"Oh." He looked chagrined for a moment before adopting a more solemn expression. "Yeah," he said seriously. "I suppose that you do."

Remembering something else she was long overdue for, Katara sighed and pulled up the chair. "I never got around to telling you why I ended up staying in that town longer than I'd planned to."

Immediately Zuko was giving her his full attention; he knew her well enough to tell this was serious. "It wasn't just because you got captured?"

"I'm afraid not." Katara shook her head, sending the feathers fluttering and the beads clacking against each other. "I ended up getting captured _because_ I stayed an extra day, because I was trying to get more information." She took a deep breath—better to just come out and say it. "I didn't actually manage to find out anything more, but… apparently Ozai has decided to remarry. The wedding was scheduled for the solstice."

She could see the rapid succession of emotions flitting across his face—shock, anger, despair—before he threw his working arm over his eyes, burying his face in the crook of his elbow. Katara pushed back the chair and stood—they could talk later about the complications to the succession, and what their response should be—but right now, Zuko needed time to process what she'd told him, and she knew _him_ well enough to know that this was not something she could help him with.

She was just turning to leave when Zuko's voice surprised her. "Sometimes, I wonder… if Ozai treated _me_ this badly, then what was he doing to my mother?"

There was no possible response that would make the situation any better. Instead, Katara laid a hand on his shoulder. "Try to get some rest. And if you want to talk, I'm here."

* * *

With one arm and both legs badly injured, Zuko wasn't in any shape to teach, and Katara had threatened in no uncertain terms to freeze him to the bed if he tried getting up or walking without leave from her or Zan. He knew from prior experience that that was not an empty threat. Still, he was keenly aware that Lien had to learn, even if it wasn't from him. They'd been putting this off for far too long already.

So, even though he'd hoped and expected to be more involved in her training, he did what he knew he had to and told Lien to go out among the Sun Warriors, to observe their culture and listen to their philosophy, and to learn about fire from anyone who was willing to teach her.

"Remember," he told her when she came in to visit, "fire is an element like any other. Yes, it can burn you if you aren't careful, but it can also cook your food and keep you warm at night. You have to respect it, but it needn't be something to fear."

One day, she pushed her way in through the hanging beads and sat down in the chair by his bed. Though Lien had never been chatty, today there was a weight to her silence that told Zuko she had something serious to say. He waited.

"The chief offered to let me meet with the masters," she said at last.

Zuko let out a breath. From the moment he'd decided to send her _here_ as a contingency, he'd seen this coming, but anticipating the possibility was a different thing entirely from its actual arrival. "Will you?"

"I don't _know_." She twisted her hands in her lap. "That's why I'm asking you."

Two years ago, he would have said no. Nothing she could possibly gain in return was worth the risk to the Avatar—the risk to his _daughter—_ facing down a pair of full-grown dragons. He would have insisted on finding another way—slower, maybe, but infinitely safer. Now, though, with only one working limb and a plan that had gone wrong in almost every way that it was possible for a plan to go wrong, Zuko could no longer even _pretend_ to be in control: Lien was not a little girl anymore, and they were well past the point where he could make her decisions for her.

"Lien, I won't lie to you." With a groan, he pushed himself up on his one working elbow so he could look her in the eye; she hastily rearranged the pillows behind him to provide support. "There is a risk—a big one. I can't tell you everything, but the masters _will_ judge you, and if they judge you unworthy, there'll be nothing that I, or Katara, or anyone else can do to stop them."

Lien didn't answer. She simply sat there, watching him quietly, her hands folded once more in her lap. She must have known that there was a "but" coming.

"But," he continued, "Aang and I faced them together, and even though I'd done so many horrible things, things I don't think you'd even believe if I told you about them now… they still judged us worthy. And I think that if you go through with this, it could really help you… but it's up to you."

Later that day, Lien gave them her answer. Though Zuko couldn't have said he was surprised, dread still twisted his gut at the thought of what came next.

* * *

The next morning, Katara was up before the crack of dawn, pacing up and down between the rows of beds. Zuko didn't even need to wake up; he hadn't slept all night.

It seemed that the two of them weren't the only ones suffering from nerves, because a few minutes later, Lien wandered in as well, rubbing her eyes. Katara motioned her over.

Katara sat down on the end of Zuko's bed, and hastily turned the chair so that its back was facing her. "Sit down," she said to Lien, and then hastily added, "Please."

"What are you doing?" Lien asked, as Katara started running a comb through her hair.

"If you're going to be working with fire, I don't want you running around with loose hair." Once Lien's hair was free of tangles, she separated out a few strands and began braiding them, not into a loose braid like the one Katara usually wore, but rather into a crown that wound around Lien's head. "The fewer things that can catch and burn you, the better."

Zuko could have told her that if someone had made up his mind to burn you, it didn't much matter how convenient it was to light your hair on fire. He didn't, though. He could see Katara's hands shaking as she ran them through Lien's hair, and knew that she was only doing whatever she could to feel in control of an uncontrollable situation.

_Agni, if Lien dies today, she's never going to forgive me._ No, never mind _Katara's_ forgiveness—if something happened to Lien today, he would never forgive _himself_. Zuko opened his mouth, and was just on the brink of saying no, forget it, it wasn't worth the risk, they could find another way… but before he could even make a sound, the beads in the doorway tinkled and the chief stepped through, silhouetted from behind by the light of the rising Sun.

"It's time."

* * *

Zuko still couldn't walk. With Lien's life on the line, though, he refused to spend the whole time lying in bed wondering what was happening to her. Even if he could do nothing else, the least he could do was bear witness.

Zan had protested, when Zuko had told him what he wanted to do. "Pass or fail, you being there to watch isn't going to change anything, and the only thing you're going to accomplish is risking your own recovery." Zuko had insisted, though, and Katara, to his surprise, had backed him up. Being neither a firebender nor a Sun Warrior, she wasn't even allowed within sight of the masters' caves. It _had_ to be him.

Working together, Zan and Katara got him into a chair, one which had been specifically designed for the transportation of badly injured people who had to be moved. Jolts of pain shot through his arm, legs, and ribs at every touch and jostle, but Zuko gritted his teeth and endured it. Then, once he was settled, two strong Sun Warriors picked up the chair and carried him to within sight of the ceremony.

Though he was not actually within the circle, Zuko could easily see the chanters and hear the pounding of the drums. He could also see a lone figure making its way up the same impossibly long staircase where he had once walked, with a different Avatar, thirteen years and a lifetime ago.

An unexpected wave of memory washed over him, then: standing there in the courtyard, side by side with Aang, warm living flames held in their hands. Aang's fear and his frustration, their joint decision to keep moving forward no matter what they were about to face.

_Agni_ , he forgot sometimes how much he missed Aang. The kid had always been so frustratingly _happy_ , such a big ball of energy and sunshine and optimism no matter how much he'd lost, no matter how bad things got… someone who was always willing to forget and forgive and see the good in everybody, even someone who'd chased him halfway around the world and back… Zuko hadn't even known what a friend _was_ before meeting him…

Without warning, Zuko found his eyes welling over, and he buried his face in his good hand to wipe away the sudden flood of tears. He'd known, he knew that he'd _known…_ but he hadn't really _understood_. Now, he did, and it was already too late.

Too late to apologize, to reconcile, to find closure for the argument they'd left unresolved. The last thing he'd said to Aang had been to tell him he must kill—that his dearest ideals were nothing more than childish fantasies and that it was time to grow up and face the real world. That Aang's mercy had led to his downfall only made the hurt cut deeper—and all over a man not worth the rope it would have taken to hang him.

Too late for Aang, maybe—but not too late for Lien. He raised his head, looking up at the podium through the blurriness in his eyes. Whatever happened, he would watch. It was the least he could do.

The drums were pounding. The horn blew. The very air rippled with the power of the dragons' flight. It wasn't until he saw the torrent of rainbow fire that Zuko dared breathe again.

* * *

He'd been moved back into bed in the infirmary by the time that Lien came in to see him. Katara and Zan had been called away to see to a child who'd fallen from a tree; the two of them were completely alone.

At first, she said nothing. She only pushed her way in through the hanging beads and slowly walked over to him. Then, right when Zuko thought she was going to speak, she sank to her knees on the floor by his bedside with her face in her hands.

It took Zuko several seconds to realize she was crying.

"Lien…?" He tried to reach out to her, but she was on the opposite side of the arm he could actually use. Even though they were so close, he could not touch her.

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?" When she lowered her hands, her whole face was wet, and her eyes red and puffy.

"I wish I could have. But understand, Ran and Shaw are the last living dragons, and I gave my word to keep their existence a secret—"

"I wasn't talking about the _dragons!_ " This was only the second time he could recall that Lien had been upset enough to raise her voice to him.

"I tried." Zuko finally gave up on trying to reach out to her, instead letting his arm fall and lie inert at his side. "Believe me, I did try. But I guess some things you just have to see for yourself."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It just wouldn't be Katara and Zuko without at least one screaming match.
> 
> The Sun Warriors are significantly more dressed up here than they were in canon. Then again, right now they're celebrating the most important holiday in their culture as opposed to being woken up in the middle of the night by two impulsive kids who stumbled into one of their temples and didn't know when to leave well enough alone. I had to do a bit of speculation about their living situation, and what I came up with is based mostly on the conclusion that there's no possible way they could actually still be living in the city if it's common knowledge in the Fire Nation that the ruins are abandoned.
> 
> It also wouldn't be this series without an element-appropriate origin story myth. Though I made a conscious decision not to use any real life myths, in hindsight I actually did notice some coincidental similarities to Aztec mythology—specifically, that one time that the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl took a stint as the Sun.
> 
> It wasn't until I was on the second draft that I took another look at Zan and realized that 'Oh dear Spirits, I've written a McCoy.' Not that I feel particularly _bad_ about that, mind.
> 
> I also did some cursory research on Mayan bonesetting practices and heat therapy in preparation for this chapter. It was actually pretty fascinating, and I've since developed a headcanon that among the Sun Warriors, healing is considered to be the highest firebending art, because of the amount of control it takes to maintain a steady temperature over an extended time period, and to direct the heat exactly where it needs to go—exactly the sorts of skills that have been systematically devalued in the post-War Fire Nation, where the only thing that matters is prowess in combat. As far as the Sun Warriors are concerned, though, any idiot can huck fireballs at some other idiot, but it takes real skill to brew a medicine or to warm injured tissues without burning them.
> 
> It _hurt_ when I remembered that not only has Aang died in this AU, but also the sort of note that he and Zuko left off on. Early on in the story Zuko was so overwhelmed that he was just sort of numbed to the pain, and then he had so many other things to worry about, but... yeah. It's _really_ hitting him now.
> 
> Just one chapter left to go!


	15. Letting Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Inspiration:** "No Way Out" by Peter Gabriel

It took Zuko several months this time to get back on his feet.

While he was still recovering, it was easy enough to avoid him: all Lien need do was not go to the infirmary. Katara noticed, and tried to nudge her over; Lien avoided the confrontation by saying that she would go and didn't, and though Katara shook her head and looked sad, she did not try to push the matter.

It wasn't as if she didn't have an excuse: she _was_ supposed to be learning how to firebend, after all, and many of the Sun Warriors _were_ willing to teach her, though they almost always asked for something in return. Sometimes it was simple labor such as carrying baskets or grinding grain, but more often than not they wanted her to earthbend: to hide the signs of their presence from the prying eyes of outsiders, to set the foundation for a new house, or even to make repairs to the ruined city in which the Sun Warriors no longer lived. Once she had done whatever they asked to their satisfaction, they would repay her with a lesson in firebending: often to show her a new technique, but sometimes simply to teach her the Sun Warrior philosophy.

Nothing she learned from the Sun Warriors, though, could even begin to compare to what the dragons had shown her. She had never known before that fire could _be_ like that. To her, being close to fire had always meant getting burned. No one had ever told her that it was so full of… of…

… _life_.

That dancing form… how had it gone? It seemed so much easier to do in the moment, with statues for reference or living dragons to move along with. She stood on one foot, lifted her arms… stepped to the side…

"Your left hand needs to be lower."

Lien jumped, losing her posture. Turning around with a guilty flush, she saw Zuko coming toward her: slowly, his gait unsteady and limping, one arm leaning heavily on a walking stick and the other in a sling.

"If I sit down, are you going to run away again?"

The guilty flush deepened. Yes, she was feeling overwhelmed, and confused, and even a little bit angry… but Zuko was still so hurt, and could barely walk, and he'd still pushed himself out of bed and limped his way over just to see how she was doing. Wordlessly, she shook her head.

"Good." He lowered himself slowly down onto a nearby wall, taking care to keep his worse-injured knee straight and laying his walking stick across the tops of his legs before turning his golden gaze on her. "We need to talk."

With a sigh, Lien moved over to the wall and sat down beside him. Still not wanting to meet Zuko's eyes, she tilted her head back to look up at the clouds. Such a short time ago, she had learned that dragons still flew among them…

"Lien, I know you're angry at me," Zuko started. "And worse yet, I know I deserve it. But do you think you could at least give me a chance to make it right?"

For a few minutes, Lien didn't say anything, only wrapped her arms around herself. _Dragons_. She thought again of the fire… so many colors, so much life…

"You _knew_ ," she said at last, and it came out as an accusation. "All this time, you knew, and you never even _told_ me."

"Lien…" Zuko let out a sigh of his own, reached up to ruffle his hair, and then abruptly decided to take a different tack. "Have I ever told you about my uncle?"

"A little bit," she responded, puzzled. "He's the one who gave you your knife."

Zuko nodded. "He did. He also came here, and learned from the dragons, years before Aang and I did."

"He didn't tell you either." It wasn't a question.

"Agni knows he _tried_. He told me everything he _could_ tell me without breaking any confidences: that firebending comes from the breath, that I needed to be calm and centered, that fire can be more than just destruction… but the fact is, I didn't really hear what he was saying because I wasn't _ready_."

"So I was just too _stupid_ to get it?" Lien leaped to her feet, fists clenched. So many years of abuse and fear, and all that she'd needed was one simple reassurance, a piece of knowledge that nobody had seen fit to give her…

"I am _not_ saying that, and I will not _ever_ say it. Lien, please sit back down."

With a huff, she did so, turning away from Zuko and crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'm saying that there are some things that simply _can't_ be told. That sometimes, the only way to really understand something is to see it for yourself. Did me _telling_ you that fire wasn't something to fear ever make you any less afraid of it?"

All at once, the anger went out of her, and her shoulders slumped. "No."

A few more minutes passed with neither of them saying anything. After a while of hearing nothing but wind and birdsong, Zuko reached out to lay a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Am I forgiven?" Wordlessly, Lien nodded.

"Now that you understand, I think you know what it's time for."

Lien sighed, and stood. " _Can_ you train me right now?" she asked. "You—"

"Being hurt isn't going to keep me from watching," Zuko interrupted, his voice firm. "And there's nothing that says I have to be your sole teacher. As long as we're here, I want you to learn from anyone who's willing to teach you, okay?"

She bit her lip, and nodded. "What do I do now?"

"Show me the Dancing Dragon. I'll let you know if you're doing something wrong."

Lien did the form. Then, she did it again. And again, Zuko interrupting her it seemed on every move to make gentle corrections to her form. With every error, her frustration grew; she was used to having someone _show_ her what to do, not having to go from the memory of a collection of frozen statues or from words that _could_ not convey the exact nuance of the movements…

"Wait." Lien stopped, and Zuko beckoned her over with a jerk of his head. "Hold this a minute?" He held out his walking stick.

Lien took it gingerly, and stepped to the side, wondering what it was he was planning to do. Zuko closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

When he let that breath out, his eyelids snapped open again, and his eyes were flame. Pointing with only two fingers, his good arm moved almost faster than the eye could follow, shooting out a series of small, hot, precisely aimed jets of fire. Within seconds, it was over.

Lien looked. There, on the flagstones of the courtyard, were a multitude of small black scorch marks. Though they did not line up neatly, when looked at as a whole they described a rough half circle.

"Do the form again," Zuko said, taking his walking stick back. "Every time you take a stance, your foot should be landing on one of those marks. Does that at least help?"

It wasn't as good as actually showing her—but under the circumstances, showing her was impossible, and she knew that Zuko was doing the best he could. Lien nodded. "I… I'll try."

That was the first real lesson that Zuko gave her, and it was far from the last.

As a teacher, he was demanding. He wanted effort, and he wanted focus. Lien was never allowed to give firebending training anything less than her full undivided attention. She was never allowed to be sloppy or lazy, no matter how tired she was. Zuko wanted nothing less than perfection on one form before he would teach her the next.

He was demanding… but he was not cruel.

She was allowed to ask questions, and he would answer them patiently. She was allowed to make mistakes, which he would correct gently, and no matter how many times he had to explain something, he never lost his temper. And, whenever she managed to do something exactly right, she would be rewarded with a rare smile and a word of praise.

* * *

Even as Zuko taught her the best that he could, Lien took to heart his suggestion that she try to learn from whatever sources were available. In particular, she found herself spending more and more time with Eloy—the boy who'd danced with her on the solstice. Though Lien initially didn't know didn't know how to react to his friendly overtures, it turned out that he not only knew exactly who to go to to learn a new technique or piece of ancient lore, he also knew how to talk to people, and provided her with introductions to several elders she never would have dared to approach on her own.

More than that, though, Lien had hardly ever gotten to spend time with anyone her own age, save Nara—and Eloy's open and easygoing manner put her at ease in ways that surly, closed-off Nara never had. It was almost as if… as if…

…as if she had a friend.

When she thought about it, she honestly couldn't say whether she'd ever had a friend before—Zuko and Katara didn't count, nor did Nori and Xi Wang. Nara, she was less sure about; though they _had_ sometimes confided in each other, and Nara had been there for her when it counted, whatever had been between them had been born of circumstance and necessity rather than choice, and they'd aggravated each other far more often than they'd genuinely enjoyed each other's company.

Eloy was… different. Eloy sought her out, even though he had no obligations to her and even though he never seemed to _want_ anything from her. Even though Lien enjoyed spending time with him, he also confused her in ways that no one else ever had, so much so that she eventually gave up on trying to sort through the tangled mess of her feelings all by herself, and talked to Katara.

Katara, after hearing her out, smiled, though her expression was both a little wistful and a little sad. "Maybe he just likes you," was Katara's suggestion. "Did you ever consider that?"

Lien wasn't sure how to feel about that either, and it wasn't until a few days later that she began to understand what Katara had _actually_ meant.

The two of them were walking through the abandoned city—Eloy had promised to tell her some of the Sun Warriors' history, and Katara, reasoning that it couldn't hurt, had told her to go ahead and even packed them a lunch. Now, they walked side by side through stone streets even older than the Four Nations, accompanied only by the echoes of their footfalls and the hot sun pounding down on the backs of their necks.

Eloy, like any Sun Warrior child over the age of ten, knew exactly where all of the booby traps were and how to avoid them. Though Lien had initially wondered why he'd wanted to explore the city with just the two of them rather than arranging a tour with one of the older storytellers, as he said "Watch out, there's a tripwire ahead" or "We need to jump over that set of tiles up there—it's best to get a running start" or pointed at one of the ancient carvings and said "Look—there's a picture of Agni making the Sun," she started to get the distinct feeling that he was enjoying showing off his knowledge.

They took a break for lunch sitting atop a high stone wall near what Eloy informed her was the heart of the ancient city. The view from up here was excellent, and Lien gazed out over the city as she chewed her dried meat and corn cakes, once again feeling that faint tug of familiarity from a memory that wasn't necessarily _hers_.

"I've been here once before," she confessed, because the silence of the city grew oppressive when no one was talking. "In my past life."

Eloy nodded, as if this information didn't surprise him. "My mother used to tell me stories about the time that Prince Zuko and the previous Avatar came here to face the masters. I was too little to remember it myself, but she was one of the chanters."

There wasn't much she could think of to say to that. Instead, she uncorked her waterskin to give them each a drink.

"Hey, that's a neat trick!" Eloy said appreciatively after he'd sipped at the globe of water that Lien lobbed his way. He grinned at her. "We don't see many other benders here, so it's nice to have you around."

For some reason that she could not yet put a name to, Lien felt her face grow hot. "Katara can do it better," she mumbled, turning away.

"I don't care what Katara can do." Eloy's hand came up to rest on her cheek, gently pulling her head around until she was looking into his earnest brown eyes. "I was talking about _you_." Then, he leaned in, and pressed his lips to hers.

For a couple of seconds, Lien was too shocked to react. No one had ever kissed her before—though Katara _had_ told her where babies came from, in detail that had made her squirm, Lien had never truly applied those lessons to herself in anything but the most abstract of terms. It was one thing to know what she needed to do to keep her body healthy after it started changing, and that men and women (or, if Nori and Xi Wang were anything to go by, women and women) sometimes wanted to do certain things with each other… but Lien had never actually thought about the possibility that _she_ might ever do any of those things. It had never before occurred to her that she might meet anyone she'd _want_ such a relationship with.

Eloy, meanwhile, looked crestfallen as he pulled away. "I'm sorry!" he blurted, his face turning red. "I thought that I— I mean that you— I mean—" He buried his face in his hands. "I… if you want to just pretend that this never happened, I'll understand."

Lien pressed a hand to her lips; her face was so hot that she was sure it was just as red as his. Katara, along with the technical details of how things worked, had told her that it was _her_ right to say no or yes, as much as she needed to respect anyone others' right to the same. _Did_ she want Eloy to be kissing her? True, it had been awkward and strange and not at all like she'd always heard a kiss was supposed to be, but…

"No," she answered at last, forcing herself to turn and meet Eloy's eyes. She leaned toward him slightly, so their faces were barely a handspan apart. "Do that again."

* * *

Time passed. At first, Lien was not even aware of how much time: not until Katara gifted her with a new dress and a few pieces of turquoise jewelry on the day she turned thirteen.

"It's… not much," she explained, a bit apologetically, as Lien pushed the bracelet up onto her arm. "But I didn't want to let this day go by unmarked."

"I… I know. Thank you."

It was impossible to convey how much she suddenly understood in that moment. Though they'd been unable to shield her from everything, Lien was only recently beginning to understand how much Zuko and Katara had suffered themselves, and how much they'd sacrificed to protect and shelter her. They did not know everything, and they were not invulnerable. They were as human as she was, with human weaknesses and human limitations… but they were doing the best they could.

"I believe that Zuko has something for you too," Katara prodded, after a few moments of Lien saying nothing.

When she knocked at Zuko's room—he'd finally been moved from the infirmary, and given space as a guest in Zan's living quarters—he was in the middle of his exercises. Though the splints and bandages had finally come off, his injuries had been severe and the healing process was slow; he would need to help it along if he wanted to regain the full use of his limbs. " _You're not sixteen anymore_ ," she'd overheard Katara telling him one evening as she'd helped him stretch out his knee. " _When you get hurt like this, it puts a strain on your body. I can help things along, but what this really needs is time._ "

"Come in," he called when he saw Lien at the door. "This should only take me a few more minutes."

Lien nodded. There were no chairs, and Zuko was using the bed for his stretches, so she sank down onto the floor, crossing her legs beneath her.

As promised, he was done after only a few minutes, at which point he took one final deep breath, moved into a normal sitting position, and patted the bed beside him. "So," he said as she sat. "Happy birthday, Lien."

Lien looked away. The last person to say that to her had been Aang… right before he'd told her what she was, and what she would have to do.

"Lien…?" Zuko reached out to touch her shoulder, only for her to hunch away from him. "What's wrong?"

"Don't you remember?" Her voice came out small and quiet, but surprisingly bitter even to her own ears.

"Oh." Zuko let out a breath. "I see. It's the anniversary."

Lien nodded miserably. Right now, she didn't think she'd ever be able to enjoy a birthday again.

For a moment, they only sat in silence. Zuko didn't try to say anything comforting—though Lien was not sure she would have wanted to hear it if he had. She was beginning to understand that there were some things that simply couldn't be made better by any number of well-meaning words.

"Katara said you have something for me," she ventured at last—to break the silence, if nothing else.

"I do." Zuko reached under the bed, pulling out an object wrapped in brown cloth, which just fit into the palm of his hand. "To be honest… given the circumstances, I'm not sure if it's the right time to give you this. But it's a part of your heritage, and I want you to have it."

Curiously, Lien began to peel the cloth away from the unknown object—it felt fairly solid under all the wrappings. As the last protective layer fell away, it revealed an elegant gold hairpiece sitting in the palm of her hand.

A sudden shock of recognition went through her. She _knew_ this object, despite the fact that she had never seen it before in her life… or at least, in _this_ life…

"This belonged to Avatar Roku—the Avatar before Aang… and my great-grandfather." She looked at him in shock. "It was a gift to him from Prince Sozin—my _other_ great-grandfather. Since it's both an Avatar relic and an heirloom of my family, you have as much right to it as anyone."

"Zuko, I—" She curled her hands around the hairpiece. It was beautifully crafted, and she was halfway afraid that she would break it by accident. "What am I supposed to _do_ with this?"

"Whatever you want." Zuko shrugged. "If you want to wear it, I'll show you how to pull your hair up, and if you don't… well, that's fine too. Remember, it's _yours_ , so anything you decide to do with it is fine. Even if you want to melt it down for practice," he concluded, though he looked pained as he said it.

Lien shuddered as she wrapped it back up; whether she ever wore it or not, she did not think she could bring herself to destroy such a beautiful piece. "Why are you giving it to _me?_ " she asked instead.

"Well, to be honest, I _thought_ about giving it to Aang… but then I wasn't sure what he could do with a hairpiece." He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Though knowing Aang, he'd have tried to tie it to his head with a ribbon or something."

The image that invoked was so ridiculous that Lien could not help but giggle, a giggle that got more intense by the second until it had turned into a full-blown fit of laughter. Zuko, though he did not join in, was smiling, and in that moment the tension between them was broken.

* * *

The next time she practiced the Dancing Dragon form, it was with Eloy as her partner while Zuko watched.

This was the form as it was _meant_ to be done, with two people: each a mirror image of the other. They went through it several times, switching sides, before Zuko called a halt because it was getting late. Eloy departed with a wave and a chaste kiss, and Lien came over to sit by Zuko's side, wiping the sweat from her face.

"Did you and Aang do that, the first time you came here?"

For a moment, Zuko stiffened as she unknowingly prodded the old wound, but then forced himself to relax with a sigh. She had a right to know. "Yeah. Yeah, we did."

Lien only looked at him quietly, waiting for more, so after a moment he continued. "Aang was the one who figured it out. I thought that learning anything from a dance was silly, right up until the dragons showed me differently."

"Were you…" She bit her lip. "Were you and Aang afraid of fire too?"

"Not in the same way that you were. Aang was afraid he couldn't control it. He was worried about hurting, not being hurt. As for me… well, I was drawing my fire from the wrong source—when I was younger, I was so angry all the time, and when I finally began to let go of that anger, my bending started to go as well. It wasn't until I came here that I learned how to draw my power from a healthier source." A flame sprang to life in his palm.

They had not agreed or planned on repeating that first exercise. When he moved to hand it over to Lien, however, she smoothly reached out to take it, sliding her hands into his with no hesitation or fear. When she pulled back, the flame went with her, and she let out a sigh of contentment as she cupped her hands around the small spot of warmth.

* * *

After her birthday, the equinox came and went, and then another solstice, then the equinox, then the solstice again. They had never been particularly concerned with how closely they marked the passage of time, but now it seemed to be slipping through her fingers like water through a sieve.

Just as Zuko had suggested, Lien learned about firebending from many sources. Ran and Shaw had showed her a side of fire that she could connect to. Zan helped her refine her control, teaching her how to maintain the steady heat necessary to brew medicines or to soothe an ache. Eloy was her first and most frequent sparring partner, and more often than not they finished every round sweaty, out of breath, and grinning at each other without needing a reason. Most of all, however, she learned from Zuko.

He talked about Aang, now, more than she'd previously heard him talk about anything involving his past. Never long stories or chunks of information, but sometimes, out of nowhere, he'd make a mention of Aang's bright smile or his unflinchingly sunny outlook or how eager he was to learn despite his frequent flightiness.

"He was one of the few people who was willing to give me a second chance, even after I'd messed up so badly."

Come to think of it, Aang seemed to be increasingly on Lien's mind as well.

At first, it was only flashes of pale blue-white out of the corner of her eye, when she was exhausted after a sparring match or just on the edge of sleep. Soon, though, she began noticing him more and more, always either during or right after firebending practice—watching her train. Watching her progress.

Initially, she thought he was only showing up to check on her, as he'd used to do during her earliest childhood when she'd been lost and in pain and had not known that life could be better. Soon, though, the increasing frequency of his appearances was impossible to ignore.

"Aang?" she whispered as she lay alone, muscles sore from firebending training and her body beginning to succumb to contented exhaustion, in the darkness of her room. "Is there something you want me to do?" For the first time in her life, however, Aang did not come when she called.

When she trained, now, Zuko hardly ever had to correct her anymore. She was now beating Eloy in almost every round, and had moved on to sparring with Zuko, and even he lost against her at least as often as he won. When she tentatively asked whether he thought she was ready to learn the next form, Zuko shrugged and admitted that the one she'd just mastered was the highest one he knew.

Yet, there was never any mention of completing her training. No one ever talked about finding her a teacher for the next element. When she asked Katara who was going to be teaching her airbending, Katara let out a sigh.

"As far as we know, the Air Nomads are extinct. Sozin wiped them all out at the start of the war, more than a hundred years ago now. We did look on our travels, but… from everything we managed to find, Aang was the only survivor."

"So how am I supposed to learn airbending?" she cried in despair. Katara did not answer.

When she saw Aang again that afternoon, though, she began to suspect he was giving his own answer.

Remembering the way he'd guided her to the island of the Sun Warriors when Zuko was unconscious and Katara was busy and the night was too dark for her to read a map, she began to pay attention not just to when he showed up, but _where_. It wasn't always the same spot, but it was always the same direction: to the south and west of the Sun Warrior ruins.

After retrieving a map, Lien spread it out on the ground and placed a marker on their current location. Then, she drew a straight line to the south and west. After passing through several small Fire Nation islands, it crossed over a stretch of open sea before hitting another cluster of islands somewhere between the southern Earth Kingdom and the south pole, all of them unmarked.

"What's here?" she asked, tapping the chain of islands on the map she'd spread out over the table.

Zuko and Katara looked at each other, and a long moment of silence passed before Katara finally spoke. "That's… the Southern Air Temple. The place where Aang grew up."

"I think…" Lien hesitated. Never before had she attempted to steer her own course, nor indeed had the opportunity to do so… but she could not shake the feeling that this was too important to let go. She _had_ to speak up. "I think I have to go there."

"Okay." Katara was already tracing her finger along the map. "There are some things we should probably take care of first, but I think we can be ready in—"

"Alone."

Until she spoke the word, Lien was not aware that she had been intending to say it—but she realized the truth of it even as it fell from her lips. Whatever it was that she had to do, it was no longer something Katara or Zuko could help her with.

Once again, they looked at each other, and seemed to be having a conversation with only their eyes. "We need to think about it," Zuko said at last. "We'll give you an answer once we've decided if you're ready."

* * *

They thought about it for a few days. Then, a week. Then, a month had gone by and still Lien had no answer.

"We're still talking it over," Katara said when she finally worked up the courage to ask. "Be patient. This isn't the sort of decision that you can rush."

Maybe not… but Lien still felt a sense of urgency about this that she could not explain. It felt like time was slipping through her fingers, like she was being pulled in two different directions by forces outside of her control. Aang would not talk to her, only continued his silent beckoning to a place over the waves. Zuko and Katara would not talk to her, only continued to tell her that they were still deciding and that she must wait. Her fourteenth birthday came and went, and the increasing sense that she needed to be doing something and wasn't left her constantly jittery and on edge.

"Okay, what's wrong?" Eloy asked, after her distraction cost her a match. "That's the first time I've beaten you since winter." He reached out a hand, and pulled her to her feet.

Lien bit her lip, and would not meet his eyes. She hadn't told him about Aang's summons, or about her conviction that she needed to leave. Of course, she had always known that their relationship would not last forever—because _nothing_ good in her life ever seemed to last. Still, it was… nice, and she wanted to enjoy it while she could.

"Seriously, you've been like this for a while." He approached, reached out as if to hug her, but then seemed to think better of it and stepped back. "Did… did I do something wrong?"

That, at least, was a question she could answer honestly. She shook her head, but was too miserable to say anything more.

"Okay, then what?" Much as she wanted him to, he wasn't letting this go. "…wait, you're not about to break up with me, are you?" She looked away. "…are you?"

At the feel of his hand on her shoulder, she turned back to him, and despite all her efforts there were tears in her eyes. "Eloy, I _have_ to leave, and I… I don't think that you can come with me."

Then, the whole thing was pouring out of her: the need for her to learn airbending, Aang's summons, Zuko and Katara's continued silence. By the time she was finally finished, the tears were running freely down her face; she slumped against the nearest available wall and allowed herself to sink down onto the ground. A few seconds later, Eloy sank down beside her, and Lien felt his arm wrap around her shoulders.

"You… you're not mad?"

"Actually, I _hate_ it." Eloy leaned his head back against the wall with a sigh, looking up at the clouds rather than at her. "But… you're the Avatar, right? I'd have to be pretty stupid not to have seen this coming."

Lien said nothing, only leaned in against him until their shoulders were touching. The Sun had nearly disappeared beneath the horizon before either of them spoke again.

"I think that when you leave the island, I'm going to go too," Eloy said at last. "Not _with_ you," he continued hastily when Lien opened her mouth. "I know that's something you have to do alone. But… Sun Warriors sometimes do go on pilgrimages, when they first become men or women. See the rest of the Fire Nation. Find out what's happening in the outside world. I think I might like to do that too." The slightest of smiles rose to his face. "Besides, as long as it's your job to end this war, the least I can do is find some way to help you."

"Thank you," Lien whispered. The sky had turned black and the stars had come out before either of them moved again.

* * *

_"_ _Please, Father. I only had the Fire Nation's best interest at heart. I'm sorry I spoke out of turn!"_

_"_ _You will fight for your honor."_

_"_ _I meant you no disrespect. I am your loyal son."_

_"_ _Rise and_ fight _, Prince Zuko."_

_"_ _I_ won't _fight you."_

_"_ _You_ will _learn respect, and_ suffering _will be your teacher."_

_Ozai lowered his hand to cup the face of the small, vulnerable figure who was kneeling before him… only the scream of agony that rang through the arena was no longer Zuko's voice._

_It was Lien's._

Zuko shot upright with a gasp, a hand going automatically to the left side of his face. It took him a couple of seconds to remember where he was: the Sun Warrior ruins, in the middle of the night. All was still. Lien slept on one side of him, Katara on the other. Both of them here. Both safe.

Zuko was getting no more sleep tonight. Moving as quietly as he was able, he hastily pulled on a shirt and made his way, barefoot and still half-dressed, to the door. The beads tinkled slightly as he pushed his way through them.

He didn't see Katara open her eyes in the wake of his departure.

Outside, he took the night air in a series of deep gasps, letting the cool, quiet stillness soothe his agitation as he slowly regained his equilibrium. At this hour of the night, no one else was about: it was just him, and the stars. Slowly, his breathing grew deeper and more even, and Zuko allowed himself to sink down onto the ground as the lightning spike of fear slowly gave way to watery limbs and a shaking he couldn't control.

He heard the padding footsteps behind him a few seconds before the beads tinkled again. "Zuko? What's wrong?"

"We can't let her go. We _can't_ let her face Ozai. We… I…" He buried his face in his hands.

For a moment, Katara was silent. Then, there was a rustle of cloth, and she let out a sigh. "Do you want to explain what this is _really_ about?"

Zuko did not turn around, but then again he didn't need to look at her to know that Katara would be glaring at him with hands on hips or crossed arms and a scowl on her face—the two of them had been at an impasse for the past several months. "I _did_ explain what it was about. Lien is too young to be going off on her own."

"She's fourteen. _I_ was fourteen when I first went off on _my_ own. My brother was fifteen. Aang was twelve. And how old were you when you were banished?"

"Thirteen."

Katara's only answer was silence, and when he finally turned around, it was to see that she was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "Are you starting to see the irony?"

"That's exactly my _point!_ " Zuko leaped to his feet. "Look at what this war _did_ to us! Look at what it did to _Aang!_ Don't you ever wonder whether he'd still be alive if someone had thought better of sending a twelve-year-old kid to fight a—"

_A monster_. He choked on the words even as Katara's understanding hand landed on his shoulder.

"I pushed him and pushed him and pushed him, and I didn't listen when he tried to tell me that he couldn't do it and he wasn't ready." Zuko was no longer shouting; now, his voice was barely above a whisper. "Katara, I sent him to his _death_." He buried his face in his hands.

For a moment, Katara didn't answer. Then, though, her arms gently wrapped around his shoulders, forcing him to turn until he was facing her.

"Zuko…" and to his astonishment he saw that she was crying as well, "…I might not have seen everything that happened, but I do know this: if Aang really thought he didn't have a chance, he wouldn't have thrown his life away for nothing. He _chose_ to face Ozai on the day of the comet… and Ozai _chose_ to kill him. Your family had already spent generations trying to hunt down the Avatar; Ozai would have chosen to kill him whether Aang had faced him or not. Like it or not, Aang had a target painted on his back from the day he was born—and like it or not, Lien does as well. She's not going to be able to keep running forever—soon, she's going to be old enough to make her own choices, and we're not going to be able to stop her."

"No," Zuko was forced to agree. "We won't." He pulled away from her. "But I _can_ do what I should have done on the Day of Black Sun, and take Ozai down before the Avatar has to."

"And _how_ exactly do you plan to do that? In case you don't remember, the _last_ time you tried to face Ozai alone, you came back half-dead! And even supposing you _do_ succeed, do you really think your nation will accept a disgraced exile who murdered his way to the throne?"

"I'll think of something—"

"That's exactly your problem!" Katara exploded. "You _don't_ think! You just rush in without a plan and you nearly get yourself killed and I'm always left to mop up whatever's left of you afterward, and you never ever stop to consider what this is _doing_ to me—to say nothing of what it's doing to _Lien_." Katara turned away with her arms crossed. "If you ask me, if you're that worried about Lien getting herself killed, you ought to start by considering what sort of example you've been setting." With that, she turned and pushed her way back through the hanging beads, leaving Zuko alone in the empty courtyard.

* * *

"Uncle… I have a confession to make."

Zuko stared down at the portrait that he'd placed between sticks of incense. The lined old face peered back at him placidly, with the same gentle smile he'd always worn in life.

"I'm trying to raise a child, but I don't have the first clue what I'm doing. I've tried—Agni knows that I've tried—but the truth is… I could really use your advice right now."

Of course, there was no answer, only the wind through the trees. Zuko sighed.

"Or maybe I should have listened to you more while you were still alive."

He thought back, to the three years he'd spent at sea… to the months he'd spent wandering the Earth Kingdom… to the days leading up to the Comet, lost and confused despite having everything he'd ever thought he wanted… what had Uncle done?

" _Firebending comes from the breath…_ "

" _Basics, Prince Zuko! Break his root!_ "

" _There is a simple honor in poverty…_ "

" _I was sad, because I thought you had lost your way…_ "

He'd comforted and supported. He'd advised. He'd imparted knowledge. He had, if necessary, stepped in to act as a shield or a guard. In the end, though, he'd never forced or forbidden, never dictated or ordered, had never attempted to deny that Zuko had been forced to age beyond his years even as he'd wished that things were different. In the end, Zuko's choices had always been his own, and Uncle had _let_ him make them, even when he clearly wished that Zuko had chosen otherwise.

_Your job was never to carry her. It was to teach her to walk._

He wished he could have given Lien a real childhood. He wished she had not had to grow up so fast… yet she had, and here they were, and he and Katara would both be dead right now if she hadn't stood up and acted on her own initiative. Like it or not, she was old enough now to make her own choices, and now that she was demanding that right, he had to let her…

…he had to let her go.

Zuko stood. The incense was snuffed with a wave of his fingers. He turned to face the horizon, not even registering how blurry it was.

What was it that Uncle had said…? Separate the positive and the negative energies… you can summon it, but you cannot control it… His breathing was surprisingly even. His arm moved in a circular motion across his chest.

When the lightning sparked from his fingers, it arced straight into a clear blue sky, creating a boom of thunder in the middle of a sunny afternoon. Flocks of lizard-birds scattered from the trees in panic flight. The air smelled of ozone. Not until he reached up to wipe his eyes did Zuko realize that there were tears running down his face.

It was time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for this part of the series!
> 
> Opening his chakras allowed Aang to access and control the Avatar State, and I've been speculating about what it could do for other people (aside from bring spiritual peace, that is). In Zuko's case, I think it might unlock his ability to create lightning.
> 
> Lien and Eloy was yet another relationship I didn't see coming... but in hindsight, it makes sense, since one of the major themes of this story is Lien starting to gain some independence from her parents, and exploring her sexuality would naturally be part of that. (Though I do wonder sometimes about my mess of OCs and where they all keep coming from.)
> 
> As for the final book, Winds of Change, I do have plans, but I'm also going to need to take my usual hiatus before I start writing it. Forcing myself to work on something when I wasn't really feeling it was one of the things that burnt me out on Harry Potter fandom, and I really don't want a repeat of that here. But! I'm hardly going to be inactive during that time, since I've signed up for the Bad Things Happen Bingo and am currently working my way through my card. And if you want to prompt me, it's not too late to grab a slot - my Tumblr account (which I totally didn't sign up for solely to do this) can be found [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lazy8blog), and right now I've just been filling prompts by having Python chuck prompts and names at me at random, so yes, please, give me requests!


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